castle
/ˈkɑːsəl/
"castle" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“castle” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,282 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,282
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 17
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large residential building or compound that is fortified and contains many defences; in previous ages often inhabited by a nobleman or king. Also, a house or mansion with some of the architectura...
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 | castle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɑːsəl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,282 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 17 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “castle” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for castle is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkɑːsəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,282 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for castle, with forms such as "acstle", "caslte", and "casstle". 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 17 confusable-pair relationships, "cate", "cattle", "costly", and more, 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 castle, castel, from late Old English castel, castell (“a town, village”), borrowed from Late Latin castellum (“small camp, fort”), diminutive of Latin castrum (“camp, fort, citadel, stronghold”). Doublet of cashel, castell, castellum, a… The correct English form is castle, spelled C-A-S-T-L-E.
Definition
- 1A large residential building or compound that is fortified and contains many defences; in previous ages often inhabited by a nobleman or king. Also, a house or mansion with some of the architectural features of medieval castles.
- 2An instance of castling.
- 3A rook; a chess piece shaped like a castle tower.
- 4A defense structure in shogi formed by defensive pieces surrounding the king.
- 5A close helmet.
- 6Any strong, imposing, and stately palace or mansion.
- 7A small tower, as on a ship, or an elephant's back.
- 8The wicket.
Etymology
From Middle English castle, castel, from late Old English castel, castell (“a town, village”), borrowed from Late Latin castellum (“small camp, fort”), diminutive of Latin castrum (“camp, fort, citadel, stronghold”). Doublet of cashel, castell, castellum, and château. Parallel borrowings (from Late Latin or Old French) are Scots castel, castell (“castle”), West Frisian kastiel (“castle”), Dutch kasteel (“castle”), German Kastell (“castle”), Danish kastel (“citadel”), Swedish kastell (“citadel”), Icelandic kastali (“castle”), Welsh castell. The late Old English word was borrowed from biblical Latin castellum which has been translated as town or village. With the sense of castle, from Anglo-Norman/Old Northern French castel (“castle”), itself from Late Latin castellum (“small camp, fort”) (compare modern French château from Old French chastel). If Latin castrum (“camp, fort, citadel, stronghold”) is from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“hut, shed”), Latin casa (“cottage, hut”) is related. Possibly related also to Gothic 𐌷𐌴𐌸𐌾𐍉 (hēþjō, “chamber”), Old English heaþor (“restraint, confinement, enclosure, prison”). See also casino, cassock.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acstle,caslte,casstle,castel,castlle,casttle,catsle,ccastle,csatle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of castle - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “castle”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-S-T-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkɑːsəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “cate” - see the side-by-side comparison. castle vs cate
- 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.