dislocation
/dɪsləʊˈkeɪʃn̩/
"dislocation" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dislocation” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #34,025 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #34,025
- frequency rank, English
- 11
- letters
- 17
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of displacing, or the state of being displaced.
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 | dislocation |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɪsləʊˈkeɪʃn̩/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #34,025 |
| Misspellings tracked | 17 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dislocation” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dislocation is 11 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɪsləʊˈkeɪʃn̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #34,025 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 17 likely wrong-spelling variants for dislocation, with forms such as "ddislocation", "dilsocation", and "dislcoation". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "dissociation", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English, from Old French, a borrowing from Medieval Latin dislocātiō, delocatio. The correct English form is dislocation, spelled D-I-S-L-O-C-A-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1The act of displacing, or the state of being displaced.
- 2The displacement of parts of rocks or portions of strata from the situation which they originally occupied.
- 3The act of dislocating, or putting out of joint; also, the condition of being thus displaced.
- 4A linear defect in a crystal lattice. Because dislocations can shift within the crystal lattice, they tend to weaken the material, compared to a perfect crystal.
- 5A sentence structure in which a constituent that could otherwise be either an argument or an adjunct of a clause occurs outside of and adjacent to the clause boundaries.
- 6In men's gymnastics, a rotating of the shoulders when performing a backwards turn on the still rings. Many skills in acrobatics appear to involve dislocating a joint, when they actually do not.
Etymology
From Middle English, from Old French, a borrowing from Medieval Latin dislocātiō, delocatio.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddislocation,dilsocation,dislcoation,disllocation,disloaction,dislocaiton,dislocasion,dislocatino,dislocationn,dislocatoin,dislocattion,disloccation,disloctaion,disolcation,disslocation,dsilocation,idslocation
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dislocation - 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
How do you spell "dislocation"?
What does "dislocation" mean?
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Using “dislocation”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-I-S-L-O-C-A-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɪsləʊˈkeɪʃn̩/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “dissociation” - see the side-by-side comparison. dislocation vs dissociation
- 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.