dwell
/dwɛl/
"dwell" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dwell” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #13,505. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #13,505
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A period of time in which a system or component remains in a given state.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dwell · dwell · English
dwell · rank #13,505 · 6 variants · 15 confusables
- FREQ-MID #13,505
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-MID 15 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH dungeon
Nearest frequency peer: dungeon (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “dwell”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- Dover
Dover
86,499 corpus weight
- dumbass
dumbass
86,498 corpus weight
- dungeon
dungeon
86,497 corpus weight
- dwell
dwell
86,496 corpus weight
- Edison
Edison
86,494 corpus weight
- Edith
Edith
86,493 corpus weight
What this shows “dwell” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | dwell |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dwɛl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #13,505 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “dwell”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around dwell (IPA /dwɛl/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #13,505 among 3,470 “D” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for dwell, with forms such as "ddwell", "dewll", and "dwel". 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 15 confusable-pair relationships, "dwelt", "dwells", "dweller", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰwel-der. Proto-Germanic *dwalaz Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Germanic *-janą Proto-Germanic *dwaljaną Proto-West Germanic *dwalljan Old English dwellan ▲ Old Norse dveljainflu. Middle English dwellen English dwell F… The correct English form is dwell, spelled D-W-E-L-L.
Definition
- 1A period of time in which a system or component remains in a given state.
- 2A brief pause in the motion of part of a mechanism to allow an operation to be completed.
- 3A planned delay in a timed control program.
- 4In a petrol engine, the period of time the ignition points are closed to let current flow through the ignition coil in between each spark. This is measured as an angle in degrees around the camshaft in the distributor which controls the points, for example in a 4-cylinder engine it might be 55° (spark at 90° intervals, points closed for 55° between each).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰwel-der. Proto-Germanic *dwalaz Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Germanic *-janą Proto-Germanic *dwaljaną Proto-West Germanic *dwalljan Old English dwellan ▲ Old Norse dveljainflu. Middle English dwellen English dwell From Middle English dwellen (“delay, live, remain, persist”), from Old English dwellan (“to mislead, deceive; be led into error, stray”), from Proto-Germanic *dwaljaną (“to hold up, delay; hesitate”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwelH- (“to whirl, swirl, blur, obfuscate”), which is cognate with Old Norse dvelja and related to Proto-Germanic *dwelaną (“to go astray”), which underwent semantic change in its descendants. Cognates include Danish dvæle (“to linger, dwell”) and Swedish dväljas (“to dwell, reside”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ddwell
- dewll
- dwel
- dwlel
- dwwell
- wdell
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dwell - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "dwell", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).