drow
/dɹəʊ/
"drow" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drow” is an uncommon English word, ranked #74,045 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #74,045
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A member of a race of folkloric beings from Orkney and Shetland; cognate to the Scandinavian troll.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɹəʊ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #74,045 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for drow is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɹəʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #74,045 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for drow, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Shetlandic and Orcadian Scots drow, from Norn *drou, *drau (compare 18th c. Norwegian drau, modern drov, drauv), alternatively *drog, from Old Norse draugr (“malevolent revenant”); along the variation trow, intermixed with Norn troll, from Old Norse tr… The correct English form is drow, spelled D-R-O-W.
Definition
- 1A member of a race of folkloric beings from Orkney and Shetland; cognate to the Scandinavian troll.
- 2A member of a race of folkloric beings from Orkney and Shetland; cognate to the Scandinavian troll.
- 3A member of a race of folkloric beings from Orkney and Shetland; cognate to the Scandinavian troll.
- 4A member of a fictional race of dark elves in various fantasy settings, such as Dungeons & Dragons.
- 5A fictional constructed language spoken by the Drow.
Etymology
From Shetlandic and Orcadian Scots drow, from Norn *drou, *drau (compare 18th c. Norwegian drau, modern drov, drauv), alternatively *drog, from Old Norse draugr (“malevolent revenant”); along the variation trow, intermixed with Norn troll, from Old Norse trǫll (“troll, malevolent supernatural being”), a partial synonym to draugr. L-vocalisation occurred in the early 15th century in Middle Scots, so trolly, knolls probably became *trowie, knowes around this time.
Synonyms
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 “drow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɹəʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.