apnea
/ˈæp.ni.ə/
"apnea" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“apnea” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #28,817 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #28,817
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The cessation of breathing, most often in reference to transient instances thereof during sleep.
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 | apnea |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæp.ni.ə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #28,817 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “apnea” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for apnea is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæp.ni.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,817 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The cessation of breathing, most often in reference to transient instances thereof during sleep.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for apnea, with forms such as "anpea", "apena", and "apnae". 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, "area", "Arne", "appear", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From a- + -pnea, from the New Latin apnoea, from the Ancient Greek ἄπνοια (ápnoia), formed from ἀ- (a-, “absence of”) + πνοή (pnoḗ, “breathing”). The correct English form is apnea, spelled A-P-N-E-A.
Definition
- 1The cessation of breathing, most often in reference to transient instances thereof during sleep.
Etymology
From a- + -pnea, from the New Latin apnoea, from the Ancient Greek ἄπνοια (ápnoia), formed from ἀ- (a-, “absence of”) + πνοή (pnoḗ, “breathing”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: anpea,apena,apnae,apnnea,appnea,panea
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of apnea - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “apnea”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-P-N-E-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈæp.ni.ə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “area” - see the side-by-side comparison. apnea vs area
- 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.