ola

\o.la\

/\o.la\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“ola” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #32,091) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#32,091
frequency rank, French
1,642
“O” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Mouvement de foule ayant lieu surtout pendant les évènements sportifs, où des spectateurs se mettent debout chacun à leur tour en levant les bras, évoquant une vague traversant la foule.

Corpus desk

Index FR-ola · ola · French

ola · rank #32,091 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #32,091
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,642
  • PHOTO-FINISH nylon

Nearest frequency peer: nylon (-1 rank slots)

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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « ola »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « ola » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

ola vs on
33% similar
ola vs ou
33% similar
ola vs or
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for ola
PropertyValue
Headwordola
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\o.la\
Letters3
Frequency rank#32,091
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « ola »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.olase place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « nylon » (#32,090), « oligarques » (#32,092), « Nouméa » (#32,089). Parmi 1,642 lemmes en « O », « ola » est au #32,091. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ola is neighbouring look-alikes ("on", "ou", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \o.la\. Frequency #32,091 among 1,642 “O” headwords. Gloss: "Mouvement de foule ayant lieu surtout pendant les évènements sportifs, où des spectateurs se mettent debout chacun à leur tour en levant les bras, évoquant une vague traversant la foule.".

No misspelling variants are generated for ola in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "on", "ou", "or", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is ola, spelled O-L-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    Mouvement de foule ayant lieu surtout pendant les évènements sportifs, où des spectateurs se mettent debout chacun à leur tour en levant les bras, évoquant une vague traversant la foule.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how ola appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Lorsqu’un petit groupe de spectateurs se lève pour déclencher le mouvement, la ola devrait en principe partir simultanément du côté droit et du côté gauche des initiateurs.

This word in other languages

Mexican wave(English)

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

How do you spell "ola"?
"ola" is spelled O-L-A. The IPA pronunciation is \o.la\.
What does "ola" mean?
As a noun, "ola" means: Mouvement de foule ayant lieu surtout pendant les évènements sportifs, où des spectateurs se mettent debout chacun à leur tour en levant les bras, évoquant une vague traversant la foule.
What words are commonly confused with "ola"?
"ola" is commonly confused with "on", "ou", "or". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ola"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ola" is \o.la\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ola" come from?
"ola" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ola", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

pip#32,117QCM#32,141RTC#32,167SCO#32,183

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list