yellow
/ˈjɛl.əʊ/
"yellow" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“yellow” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,097 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,097
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The color of sunflower petals and lemons; the color obtained by mixing green and red light, or by subtracting blue from white light; the color evoked by light of wavelength around 580 nm; one of th...
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 | yellow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈjɛl.əʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,097 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “yellow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for yellow is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈjɛl.əʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,097 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for yellow, with forms such as "eyllow", "yelloww", and "yellwo". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "yellows", "yell", "Yellen", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English yelwe, yelou, from Old English ġeolwe, oblique form of Old English ġeolu, from Proto-West Germanic *gelu, from Proto-Germanic *gelwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃wós, from *ǵʰelh₃- (“gleam, yellow”). Cognate with Scots yella (“yello… The correct English form is yellow, spelled Y-E-L-L-O-W.
Definition
- 1The color of sunflower petals and lemons; the color obtained by mixing green and red light, or by subtracting blue from white light; the color evoked by light of wavelength around 580 nm; one of the three primary colors in subtractive color systems.
- 2The middle light in a set of three traffic lights, the lighting of which indicates that drivers should stop short of the intersection if it is safe to do so.
- 3One of the color balls used in snooker, with a value of 2 points.
- 4One of two groups of object balls, or a ball from that group, as used in the principally British version of pool that makes use of unnumbered balls (the yellow(s) and red(s)); contrast stripes and solids in the originally American version with numbered balls).
- 5A yellow card.
- 6Any of various pierid butterflies of the subfamily Coliadinae, especially the yellow colored species. Compare sulphur.
Etymology
From Middle English yelwe, yelou, from Old English ġeolwe, oblique form of Old English ġeolu, from Proto-West Germanic *gelu, from Proto-Germanic *gelwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃wós, from *ǵʰelh₃- (“gleam, yellow”). Cognate with Scots yella (“yellow”), North Frisian gööl, güül (“yellow”), Saterland Frisian jeel (“yellow”), West Frisian giel (“yellow”), Cimbrian gel, ghéel (“yellow”), Dutch geel (“yellow”), Dutch Low Saxon gael, gel (“yellow”), German gelb, gehl (“yellow”), German Low German gel, geel, gęl, gäl (“yellow”), Luxembourgish giel (“yellow”), Vilamovian gaoł (“yellow”), Yiddish געל (gel), געלב (gelb, “yellow”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish gul (“yellow”), Faroese and Icelandic gulur (“yellow”). Compare also Welsh gell (“bay, tawny”), Latin helvus (“dull yellow”), Irish geal (“white, bright”), Italian giallo (“yellow”) Lithuanian žalias (“green”), Ancient Greek χλωρός (khlōrós, “light green”), Persian زرد (zard, “yellow”), Sanskrit हरि (hari, “greenish-yellow”), Russian жёлтый (žóltyj, “yellow”), Russian зелёный (zeljónyj, “green”). The verb is from Middle English yelwen, ȝalowen, ȝolewen, from Old English ġeolwian, from the adjective.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eyllow,yelloww,yellwo,yelolw,yelow,ylelow,yyellow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of yellow - 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
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Using “yellow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is Y-E-L-L-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈjɛl.əʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “yellows” - see the side-by-side comparison. yellow vs yellows
- 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.