distill

verb

"distill" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“distill” is an uncommon English word, ranked #54,741 in English word frequency and used as a verb.

#54,741
frequency rank, English
7
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - US standard spelling of distil.

Key facts for distill
PropertyValue
Headworddistill
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters7
Frequency rank#54,741
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “distill” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). distill lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for distill is 7 letters long, classified as a verb. Corpus data places it at rank #54,741 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "US standard spelling of distil.".

distill doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is distill, spelled D-I-S-T-I-L-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    US standard spelling of distil.

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 "distill"?
"distill" is spelled D-I-S-T-I-L-L.
What does "distill" mean?
As a verb, "distill" means: US standard spelling of distil.
What language does "distill" come from?
"distill" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “distill”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is D-I-S-T-I-L-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list