wold
/wəʊld/
"wold" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wold” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #42,997 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #42,997
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | wold |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /wəʊld/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #42,997 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “wold” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for wold is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /wəʊld/. Corpus data places it at rank #42,997 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for wold, with forms such as "owld", "wlod", and "wodl". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "won", "wow", "woo", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wald, wold, from Old English wald, weald (“highland covered with trees, wood, forest”), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *wel(ə)-t-. Doublet of weald. Cognates See also Saterland Fris… The correct English form is wold, spelled W-O-L-D.
Definition
- 1An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor.
- 2A wood or forest, especially a wooded upland.
Etymology
From Middle English wald, wold, from Old English wald, weald (“highland covered with trees, wood, forest”), from Proto-West Germanic *walþu, from Proto-Germanic *walþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *wel(ə)-t-. Doublet of weald. Cognates See also Saterland Frisian Woold (“forest”), West Frisian wâld (“forest”), Bavarian Woid (“forest”), Cimbrian balt (“forest”), Dutch woud (“forest”), German Wald (“forest”), German Low German Woold, Woolt (“forest”), Luxembourgish Wal (“forest”), Mòcheno bòlt (“forest”), Yiddish וואַלד (vald, “forest”), Danish vold (“field, meadow”), val (“plain”), Faroese vøllur (“field, lawn”), Icelandic völlur (“field, lawn”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk voll (“field, meadow”), Swedish vall (“field, meadow”), Welsh gwallt (“hair”), Lithuanian váltis (“oat awn”), Serbo-Croatian vlât (“ear (of wheat)”), Ancient Greek λάσιος (lásios, “hairy”)); also the related term weald.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: owld,wlod,wodl,woldd,wolld,wwold
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of wold - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "wold"?
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Using “wold”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-O-L-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /wəʊld/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “won” - see the side-by-side comparison. wold vs won
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.