attention
/əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/
"attention" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“attention” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #800 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #800
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Mental focus.
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 | attention |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #800 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “attention” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for attention is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #800 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 4 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 attention, with forms such as "atention", "atetntion", and "atteniton". 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, "attentive", "attrition", "attentions", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *ten- Proto-Indo-European *tend-der. Proto-Italic *tendō Latin tendō Latin attendō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin at… The correct English form is attention, spelled A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1Mental focus.
- 2An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.
- 3A state of alertness in the standing position.
- 4A kind of prioritisation technique in neural networks that assigns soft weights between tokens from two (or more) input sequences in order to compute the required output.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *ten- Proto-Indo-European *tend-der. Proto-Italic *tendō Latin tendō Latin attendō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin attentiōbor. Middle English attencioun English attention From Middle English attencioun, borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionis, from attendere, past participle attentus (“to attend, give heed to”); see attend. Equivalent to attend + -tion.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: atention,atetntion,atteniton,attenntion,attension,attentino,attentionn,attentoin,attenttion,attetnion,attnetion,tatention
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of attention - 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
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Using “attention”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “attentive” - see the side-by-side comparison. attention vs attentive
- 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.