drape
/dɹeɪp/
"drape" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drape” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #39,786 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #39,786
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A curtain; a drapery.
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 | drape |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɹeɪp/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #39,786 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drape” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for drape is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɹeɪp/. Corpus data places it at rank #39,786 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 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 drape, with forms such as "darpe", "ddrape", and "draep". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Dre", "drop", "draw", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English drape (“a drape”, noun), from Old French draper (“to drape; to full cloth”), from drap (“cloth, drabcloth”), from Late Latin drappus, drapus (“drabcloth, kerchief”), a word first recorded in the Capitularies of Charlemagne, probably from… The correct English form is drape, spelled D-R-A-P-E.
Definition
- 1A curtain; a drapery.
- 2The way in which fabric falls or hangs.
- 3A member of a youth subculture distinguished by its sharp dress, especially peg-leg pants (1950s: e.g. Baltimore, MD). Antonym: square.
- 4A dress made from an entire piece of cloth, without having pieces cut away as in a fitted garment.
Etymology
From Middle English drape (“a drape”, noun), from Old French draper (“to drape; to full cloth”), from drap (“cloth, drabcloth”), from Late Latin drappus, drapus (“drabcloth, kerchief”), a word first recorded in the Capitularies of Charlemagne, probably from Frankish *drapi, *drāpi (“that which is fulled, drabcloth”, literally “that which is struck or for striking”), from Proto-Germanic *drapiz (“a strike, hit, blow”) and Proto-Germanic *drēpiz (“intended for striking, to be beaten”), both from *drepaną (“to beat, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreb- (“to beat, crush, make or become thick”). Cognate with English drub (“to beat”), North Frisian dreep (“a blow”), Low German drapen, dräpen (“to strike”), German treffen (“to meet”), Swedish dräpa (“to slay”). More at drub.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: darpe,ddrape,draep,drappe,drpae,drrape,rdape
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drape - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “drape”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-A-P-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɹeɪp/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Dre” - see the side-by-side comparison. drape vs Dre
- 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.