affection
/əˈfɛk.ʃən/
"affection" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“affection” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,003 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,003
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of affecting or acting upon.
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 | affection |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈfɛk.ʃən/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #8,003 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “affection” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for affection is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈfɛk.ʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,003 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 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for affection, with forms such as "afection", "afefction", and "affcetion". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "affective", "affliction", "affections", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English affection, affeccion, affeccioun, from Old French affection, from Latin affectiōnem, from affectiō; equivalent to affect + -ion. The correct English form is affection, spelled A-F-F-E-C-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1The act of affecting or acting upon.
- 2The state of being affected, especially: a change in, or alteration of, the emotional state of a person or other animal, caused by a subjective affect (a subjective feeling or emotion), which arises in response to a stimulus which may result from either thought or perception.
- 3An attribute; a quality or property; a condition.
- 4An emotion; a feeling or natural impulse acting upon and swaying the mind.
- 5A feeling of love or strong attachment.
- 6A disease; a morbid symptom; a malady.
Etymology
From Middle English affection, affeccion, affeccioun, from Old French affection, from Latin affectiōnem, from affectiō; equivalent to affect + -ion.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: afection,afefction,affcetion,affecction,affeciton,affecsion,affectino,affectionn,affectoin,affecttion,affetcion,fafection
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of affection - 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
How do you spell "affection"?
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Using “affection”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-F-F-E-C-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈfɛk.ʃən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “affective” - see the side-by-side comparison. affection vs affective
- 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.