canst
/kænst/
"canst" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“canst” is uncommon English (frequency #63,491 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,491
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - second-person singular simple present indicative of can
Corpus desk
Index EN-canst · canst · English
canst · rank #63,491 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #63,491
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cannoli
Nearest frequency peer: cannoli (-1 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 “canst”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- businesslike
businesslike
36,516 corpus weight
- Callen
Callen
36,513 corpus weight
- cannoli
cannoli
36,511 corpus weight
- canst
canst
36,510 corpus weight
- cantankerous
cantankerous
36,509 corpus weight
- CARICOM
CARICOM
36,507 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “canst” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | canst |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /kænst/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #63,491 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “canst” in English
Rare enough to double-check
canst is uncommon English at frequency #63,491 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /kænst/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "second-person singular simple present indicative of can".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for canst, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is canst, spelled C-A-N-S-T.
Definition
- 1second-person singular simple present indicative of can
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how canst appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Canst thou show me the way?
Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends. Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "canst", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).