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The aspell command, from the aspell package is designed to spell check files. This package also provides the command spell, ispell, and run-with-aspell which call aspell in different ways.

For example, to check if the word "compatible" is correct, execute the command:

echo compatible|aspell -a

The output should be similar to:

@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20
*

This output shows that "compatible" is spelt correctly.

However, if you try to check the word "compatable," the output would be:

@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20
& compatable 5 0: compatible, computable, comparable,

This output shows that "compatable" is incorrect. Correctly spelled alternatives are listed as suggestions.

The spell command can be used to check for misspelled words in a file:

$ spell example.txt
thr

This shows that the word "thr" is misspelled in the file.

The look command, from the util-linux package, lets you check a word on the command line against a list of correctly spelled words. By default, look references the list of words in "/usr/share/dict/words" from the words package.

For example, to check if "compatable" is spelled correctly:

$ look compatable

This returns no output, so "compatable" is not a correctly spelled word.