allô
\a.lo\
The verdict
“allô” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #19,439 in French word frequency and used as an interjection.
- #19,439
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Mot phatique employé pour établir ou rétablir la conversation téléphonique avec son interlocuteur.
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 | allô |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \a.lo\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #19,439 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “allô” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for allô is 4 letters long, classified as an interjection, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \a.lo\. Corpus data places it at rank #19,439 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for allô, with forms such as "allo", "alô", and "alôl". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "alt", "APL", "als", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is allô, spelled A-L-L-Ô.
Definition
- 1Mot phatique employé pour établir ou rétablir la conversation téléphonique avec son interlocuteur.
- 2Pour être sûr que la personne à qui on s’adresse écoute.
- 3Pour signifier à l’interlocuteur que celui-ci ou qu’un tiers n’a pas l’esprit présent ou qu’il ne comprend pas une chose évidente.
- 4ou Salut, aussi utilisé dans les conversations non téléphoniques pour donner ses salutations.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: allo,alô,alôl,lalô
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of allô - 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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “allô”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is A-L-L-Ô - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \a.lo\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “alt” - see the side-by-side comparison. allô vs alt
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.