assistance
/əˈsɪs.təns/
"assistance" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“assistance” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,514 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,514
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Aid; help; the act or result of assisting.
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 | assistance |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈsɪs.təns/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #2,514 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “assistance” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for assistance is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈsɪs.təns/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,514 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Aid; help; the act or result of assisting.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for assistance, with forms such as "asisstance", "asistance", and "assisatnce". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "assistant", 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 assistance, from Middle French assistance, from Medieval Latin assistentia, from Latin assistō (“to stand at”). By surface analysis, assist + -ance. The correct English form is assistance, spelled A-S-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Aid; help; the act or result of assisting.
Etymology
From Middle English assistance, from Middle French assistance, from Medieval Latin assistentia, from Latin assistō (“to stand at”). By surface analysis, assist + -ance.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asisstance,asistance,assisatnce,assisstance,assistacne,assistancce,assistanec,assistannce,assistence,assistnace,assisttance,assitsance,asssitance,sasistance
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of assistance - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "assistance"?
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Using “assistance”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-S-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈsɪs.təns/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “assistant” - see the side-by-side comparison. assistance vs assistant
- 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.