ASW
"asw" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ASW” is uncommon English (frequency #56,595 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,595
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Abbreviation of antisubmarine warfare.
Corpus desk
Index EN-asw · ASW · English
ASW · rank #56,595 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,595
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH astronautics
Nearest frequency peer: astronautics (-2 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “ASW”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Ashfield
Ashfield
43,410 corpus weight
- assiduously
assiduously
43,409 corpus weight
- astronautics
astronautics
43,408 corpus weight
- ASW
ASW
43,406 corpus weight
- Ayodhya
Ayodhya
43,404 corpus weight
- Baltics
Baltics
43,402 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “ASW” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ASW |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #56,595 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ASW” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ASW is uncommon English at frequency #56,595 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Abbreviation of antisubmarine warfare.".
ASW has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is ASW, spelled A-S-W.
Definition
- 1Abbreviation of antisubmarine warfare.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how ASW appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“You know, I really didn't have much to do with Vietnam. In the summer of 1964, I went to work for the assistant CNO for submarine warfare, Op 02. But that summer, Op 03—that's surface warfare—was developing new ASW strategies.”
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.
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ASW", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).