assassin
/əˈsæsɪn/
"assassin" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“assassin” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,835 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #11,835
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Someone who intentionally kills a person, especially a professional who kills a public or political figure.
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 | assassin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈsæsɪn/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #11,835 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “assassin” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for assassin is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈsæsɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,835 in overall English 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 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for assassin, with forms such as "asassin", "asasssin", and "assasin". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "assessing", "assassins", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From either French assassin or Italian assassino, from Arabic أَسَاسِيِّين (ʔasāsiyyīn, “people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]”) and the folkloric etymology Arabic حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn, “hashish users; low-lives”). The mathematical sense … The correct English form is assassin, spelled A-S-S-A-S-S-I-N.
Definition
- 1Someone who intentionally kills a person, especially a professional who kills a public or political figure.
- 2Any ruthless killer.
- 3A member of the Nizari Ismaili Muslim community of the Alamut Period.
- 4An associated prime of a module.
Etymology
From either French assassin or Italian assassino, from Arabic أَسَاسِيِّين (ʔasāsiyyīn, “people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]”) and the folkloric etymology Arabic حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn, “hashish users; low-lives”). The mathematical sense was introduced by Bourbaki, playing on the notation operatorname Ass(M) and the fact that an associated prime is the annihilator of an element, and so is said to kill that element.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asassin,asasssin,assasin,assasisn,assassinn,assassni,asssasin,sasassin
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of assassin - 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 “assassin”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-S-S-A-S-S-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈsæsɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “assessing” - see the side-by-side comparison. assassin vs assessing
- 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.