church
/ˈt͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/
"church" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“church” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #708 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #708
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A Christian house of worship; a building where Christian religious services take place.
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 | church |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈt͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #708 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “church” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for church is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈt͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #708 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for church, with forms such as "cchurch", "chhurch", and "chruch". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "couch", "churn", "clutch", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English chirche, from Old English ċiriċe (“church”), from Proto-West Germanic *kirikā, an early borrowing of Ancient Greek κυριακόν (kuriakón), neuter form of κυριακός (kuriakós, “belonging to the lord”), from κύριος (kúrios, “ruler, lord”), fro… The correct English form is church, spelled C-H-U-R-C-H.
Definition
- 1A Christian house of worship; a building where Christian religious services take place.
- 2Christians collectively seen as a single spiritual community; Christianity; Christendom.
- 3A local group of people who follow the same Christian religious beliefs, local or general.
- 4A particular denomination of Christianity.
- 5Christian worship held at a church; service.
- 6Organized religion in general or a specific religion considered as a political institution.
- 7Any religious group or place of worship; a temple.
- 8Assembly.
Etymology
From Middle English chirche, from Old English ċiriċe (“church”), from Proto-West Germanic *kirikā, an early borrowing of Ancient Greek κυριακόν (kuriakón), neuter form of κυριακός (kuriakós, “belonging to the lord”), from κύριος (kúrios, “ruler, lord”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- (“to swell, spread out, be strong, prevail”). Doublet of kirk. additional etymological information For vowel evolution, see bury. Ancient Greek κυριακόν (kuriakón) was used of houses of Christian worship since circa 300 CE, especially in the East, though it was less common in this sense than ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía, “congregation”) or βασιλική (basilikḗ, “royal thing”). An example of the direct Greek-to-Germanic progress of many Christian words, possibly via the Goths; it was probably used by West Germanic people in their pre-Christian period. Cognate with Scots kirk (“church”), West Frisian tsjerke (“church”), Saterland Frisian Säärke (“church”), Dutch kerk (“church”), German Kirche (“church”), Danish kirke (“church”), Swedish kyrka (“church”), Norwegian Bokmål kirke, Norwegian Nynorsk kyrkje (“church”), and Icelandic kirkja (“church”). Also picked up by Slavic, via Old High German chirihha (compare Old Church Slavonic црькꙑ (crĭky), Bulgarian църква (cǎrkva), Russian це́рковь (cérkovʹ)). Romance and Celtic languages use descendants of Latin ecclēsia.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cchurch,chhurch,chruch,chucrh,churcch,churchh,churhc,churrch,cuhrch,hcurch
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of church - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “church”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-H-U-R-C-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈt͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “couch” - see the side-by-side comparison. church vs couch
- 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.