dig
/dɪɡ/
"dig" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dig” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #4,940 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #4,940
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To move hard-packed earth out of the way, especially downward to make a hole with a shovel. Or to drill, or the like, through rocks, roads, or the like. More generally, to make any similar hole by ...
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 | dig |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dɪɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #4,940 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dig” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dig is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɪɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,940 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for dig in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "do", "Dr", "DJ", 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 diggen (“to dig”, 13th c.), an alteration of dīken, from Old English dīcian (“to dig a ditch, mound up earth”), from Proto-West Germanic *dīkōn, which see for cognates. This verb is denominal from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz (“pool, puddle; dy… The correct English form is dig, spelled D-I-G.
Definition
- 1To move hard-packed earth out of the way, especially downward to make a hole with a shovel. Or to drill, or the like, through rocks, roads, or the like. More generally, to make any similar hole by moving material out of the way.
- 2To get by digging; to take from the ground; often with up.
- 3To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.
- 4To work like a digger; to study ploddingly and laboriously.
- 5To investigate, to research, often followed by out or up.
- 6To thrust; to poke.
- 7To defend against an attack hit by the opposing team by successfully passing the ball
Etymology
From Middle English diggen (“to dig”, 13th c.), an alteration of dīken, from Old English dīcian (“to dig a ditch, mound up earth”), from Proto-West Germanic *dīkōn, which see for cognates. This verb is denominal from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz (“pool, puddle; dyke, ditch”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to stab, dig”). The form with g may have been influenced by Old French *diguer, a variant of dikier, itself from the West Germanic verb above. French forms with g are attested only in the 15th c., thus 200 years later than in English. On the other hand, French has according forms also for the underlying noun (cf. digue) and the phonetic development is more plausible in French than in English.
This word in other languages
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 “dig”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-I-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɪɡ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “do” - see the side-by-side comparison. dig vs do
- 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.