death
/dɛθ/
"death" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“death” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #385 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #385
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The cessation of life and all associated processes; the end of an organism's existence as an entity independent from its environment and its return to an inert, nonliving state.
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 | death |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɛθ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #385 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “death” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for death is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɛθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #385 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for death, with forms such as "daeth", "ddeath", and "deaht". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "debt", "dent", "doth", 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 deeth, from Old English dēaþ, from Proto-West Germanic *dauþu, from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰówtus. More at die. Cognates Cognate with Scots daeth, daith, death, deeth, deith (“death”), North Frisian Duar, duas… The correct English form is death, spelled D-E-A-T-H.
Definition
- 1The cessation of life and all associated processes; the end of an organism's existence as an entity independent from its environment and its return to an inert, nonliving state.
- 2The cessation of life and all associated processes; the end of an organism's existence as an entity independent from its environment and its return to an inert, nonliving state.
- 3The personification of death as a (usually male) hooded figure with a scythe; the Grim Reaper.
- 4The collapse or end of something.
- 5The collapse or end of something.
- 6Spiritual lifelessness.
Etymology
From Middle English deeth, from Old English dēaþ, from Proto-West Germanic *dauþu, from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰówtus. More at die. Cognates Cognate with Scots daeth, daith, death, deeth, deith (“death”), North Frisian Duar, duas, düüs (“death”), Saterland Frisian Dood (“death”), West Frisian dea (“death”), Dutch dood (“death”), German Tod, Todt (“death”), Limburgish doead (“death”), Luxembourgish Doud (“death”), Yiddish טויט (toyt, “death”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål død (“death”), Faroese deyði (“death”), Icelandic dauði (“death”), Norwegian Nynorsk daude, død (“death”), Swedish död (“death”), Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌿𐍃 (dauþus, “death”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: daeth,ddeath,deaht,deathh,deatth,detah,edath
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of death - 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 “death”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-E-A-T-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɛθ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “debt” - see the side-by-side comparison. death vs debt
- 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.