woolly
/ˈwʊli/
"woolly" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“woolly” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #27,343. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #27,343
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Made of wool.
Corpus desk
Index EN-woolly · woolly · English
woolly · rank #27,343 · 7 variants · 13 confusables
- FREQ-MID #27,343
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 13 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH Wolverhampton
Nearest frequency peer: Wolverhampton (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “woolly”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- whey
whey
72,662 corpus weight
- Whyte
Whyte
72,661 corpus weight
- willpower
willpower
72,660 corpus weight
- Wolverhampt…
Wolverhampton
72,659 corpus weight
- woolly
woolly
72,658 corpus weight
- Yokohama
Yokohama
72,656 corpus weight
What this shows “woolly” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | woolly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈwʊli/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #27,343 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “woolly”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around woolly (IPA /ˈwʊli/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #27,343 among 1,759 “W” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for woolly, with forms such as "owolly", "wolly", and "wololy". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "worldly", "woolsey", "wool", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wolly, equivalent to wool + -y. Cognate with Saterland Frisian wullich (“woolly”), Dutch wollig (“woolly”), German wollig (“woolly”), Swedish ullig (“woolly”). The correct English form is woolly, spelled W-O-O-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Made of wool.
- 2Having a thick, soft texture, as if made of wool.
- 3Unclear, fuzzy, hazy, cloudy.
- 4Clothed in wool.
- 5Cross; irritable.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how woolly appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Put on a woolly jumper and turn down the thermostat.
Sporting a woolly cardigan with four buttons on top of an Oxford smock without a collar, our man has a faintly folksy look about him, calling to mind a zingaro or a gypsy, a carny or a Mongol, but also (switching to a wholly distinct mythology and iconography) a hippy strumming his guitar in a barroom in Haight-Ashbury or at Big Sur or in Katmandu.
Etymology
From Middle English wolly, equivalent to wool + -y. Cognate with Saterland Frisian wullich (“woolly”), Dutch wollig (“woolly”), German wollig (“woolly”), Swedish ullig (“woolly”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- owolly
- wolly
- wololy
- woollyy
- wooly
- woolyl
- wwoolly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of woolly - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "woolly", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).