drink
/dɹɪŋk/
"drink" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drink” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,334 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #1,334
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To consume (a liquid) through the mouth.
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 | drink |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dɹɪŋk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,334 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drink” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for drink is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɹɪŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,334 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for drink, with forms such as "ddrink", "dirnk", and "drikn". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "drip", "dunk", "drive", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English drinken, from Old English drincan (“to drink, swallow up, engulf”), from Proto-West Germanic *drinkan, from Proto-Germanic *drinkaną (“to drink”), of uncertain origin; possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrenǵ- (“to draw into one's mouth… The correct English form is drink, spelled D-R-I-N-K.
Definition
- 1To consume (a liquid) through the mouth.
- 2To consume the liquid contained within (a bottle, glass, etc.).
- 3To consume alcoholic beverages.
- 4To take in (a liquid), in any manner; to suck up; to absorb; to imbibe.
- 5To take in; to receive within one, through the senses; to inhale; to hear; to see.
- 6To toast (someone or something) with a drink, honour; to wish well (see drink to), especially
- 7To toast (someone or something) with a drink, honour; to wish well (see drink to), especially:
- 8To toast (someone or something) with a drink, honour; to wish well (see drink to), especially:
- 9To smoke, as tobacco.
- 10Used in phrasal verbs: drink down, drink in, drink off, drink out, drink to, drink up.
Etymology
From Middle English drinken, from Old English drincan (“to drink, swallow up, engulf”), from Proto-West Germanic *drinkan, from Proto-Germanic *drinkaną (“to drink”), of uncertain origin; possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrenǵ- (“to draw into one's mouth, sip, gulp”), nasalised variant of *dʰreǵ- (“to draw, glide”). Cognates Cognate with Yola drink (“to drink”), North Frisian drank, drainke, drink, drinke (“to drink”), West Frisian drinke (“to drink”), Alemannic German trénge, trenhu, trinche, tringhien, trinke (“to drink”), Bavarian dringa, trinckn, trinkhn, trinkn (“to drink”), Cimbrian trinkan, trinkhan (“to drink”), Dutch, Low German drinken (“to drink”), German, Mòcheno trinken (“to drink”), Luxembourgish drénken (“to drink”), Yiddish טרינקען (trinken, “to drink”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål drikke (“to drink”), Elfdalian drikka (“to drink”), Faroese, Icelandic drekka (“to drink”), Jutish drenk (“to drink”), Norwegian Nynorsk drikka, drikke (“to drink”), Swedish dricka (“to drink”), Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌺𐌰𐌽 (drigkan, “to drink”), Vandalic drincan (“to drink”), French trinquer (“to booze, drink alcohol”), Italian trincare (“to knock back (a drink)”), Spanish trincar (“to get drunk”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddrink,dirnk,drikn,drinkk,drinnk,drnik,drrink,rdink
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drink - 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 "drink"?
What does "drink" mean?
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Using “drink”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-I-N-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɹɪŋk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “drip” - see the side-by-side comparison. drink vs drip
- 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.