earth
/ɜːθ/
"earth" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“earth” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #923 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #923
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 19
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Alternative letter-case form of Earth; our planet, third out from the Sun.
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 | earth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ɜːθ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #923 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “earth” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for earth is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɜːθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #923 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Alternative letter-case form of Earth; our planet, third out from the Sun.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for earth, with forms such as "aerth", "earht", and "earrth". 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 19 confusable-pair relationships, "eat", "eth", "east", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English erthe, from Old English eorþe, from Proto-West Germanic *erþu, from Proto-Germanic *erþō (“dirt, ground, earth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁érteh₂ (“earth”). Cognates Cognate with Scots erd, yerd, yird, yirth (“earth, loam, mould, soil… The correct English form is earth, spelled E-A-R-T-H.
Definition
- 1Alternative letter-case form of Earth; our planet, third out from the Sun.
Etymology
From Middle English erthe, from Old English eorþe, from Proto-West Germanic *erþu, from Proto-Germanic *erþō (“dirt, ground, earth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁érteh₂ (“earth”). Cognates Cognate with Scots erd, yerd, yird, yirth (“earth, loam, mould, soil; ground”), Yola eard, eart, eord, eorth, erth (“earth”), North Frisian eerd, eerde, iarde, Iart, iir, jard, örd, Öört (“earth; world”), Saterland Frisian Idde, Äid, Äide (“earth; soil; ground”), West Frisian ierde (“earth; soil; ground”), Alemannic German Ëërde (“earth”), Bavarian Erd, Erdn (“world; soil; ground”), Central Franconian Ääd (“earth”), Cimbrian èerda (“earth”), Dutch aard, aarde (“earth”), German Erde (“earth; soil; ground; world”), German Low German Eer (“earth”), Limburgish eerd (“earth”), Luxembourgish Äerd (“earth; soil”), Vilamovian Ād (“earth”), Yiddish ערד (erd, “earth; soil”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish jord (“earth”), Faroese jørð (“earth”), Icelandic jörð (“earth”), Norn yurn (“the earth”), Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌸𐌰 (airþa, “earth”); also Latin ōra (“border, edge, rim”), Breton erv (“ridge between furrows”), Welsh erw (“acre”), Ancient Greek ἔραζε (éraze, “to the ground”), Lithuanian erdvė (“expanse, space”), Albanian varr, vorr (“grave”), Tocharian B āre (“dust, loose earth”), Sanskrit उर्वरा (urvarā, “fertile soil, field yielding crops”), Hittite 𒅕𒄩𒀸 (er-ḫa-aš /erḫaš/, “border, boundary, line”). Probably unrelated, but of unknown etymology, is Old Armenian երկիր (erkir, “earth”). Likewise, the phonologically similar Proto-Semitic *ʔarṣ́- – whence Arabic أَرْض (ʔarḍ), Hebrew אֶרֶץ (ʾereṣ) – is probably unrelated.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aerth,earht,earrth,earthh,eartth,eatrh,erath
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of earth - 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
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Using “earth”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-A-R-T-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɜːθ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “eat” - see the side-by-side comparison. earth vs eat
- 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.