drifts
/dɹɪfts/
"drifts" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drifts” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #29,634 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #29,634
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - plural of drift
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 | drifts |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɹɪfts/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #29,634 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drifts” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for drifts is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɹɪfts/. Corpus data places it at rank #29,634 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "plural of drift".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for drifts, with forms such as "ddrifts", "dirfts", and "drfits". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "drinks", "drives", "drills", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is drifts, spelled D-R-I-F-T-S.
Definition
- 1plural of drift
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddrifts,dirfts,drfits,driffts,drifst,driftss,driftts,dritfs,drrifts,rdifts
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drifts - 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 “drifts”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-I-F-T-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɹɪfts/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “drinks” - see the side-by-side comparison. drifts vs drinks
- 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.