erosion
/əˈɹoʊʒən/
"erosion" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“erosion” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,235 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,235
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The result of having been worn away or eroded, as by a glacier on rock or the sea on a cliff face.
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 | erosion |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈɹoʊʒən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #12,235 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “erosion” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for erosion is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈɹoʊʒən/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,235 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for erosion, with forms such as "eorsion", "eroison", and "erosino". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "evasion", "emotion", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French erosion, from Latin ērōsiō (“eating away”), derived from ērōdō. The first known occurrence in English was in the 1541 translation by Robert Copland of Guy de Chauliac's medical text The Questyonary of Cyrurygens. Copland used erosion to d… The correct English form is erosion, spelled E-R-O-S-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1The result of having been worn away or eroded, as by a glacier on rock or the sea on a cliff face.
- 2The changing of a surface by mechanical action, friction, thermal expansion contraction, or impact.
- 3The gradual loss of something as a result of an ongoing process.
- 4Destruction by abrasive action of fluids.
- 5One of two fundamental operations in morphological image processing from which all other morphological operations are derived.
- 6Loss of tooth enamel due to non-bacteriogenic chemical processes.
- 7A shallow ulceration or lesion, usually involving skin or epithelial tissue.
- 8In morphology, a basic operation (denoted ⊖); see Erosion (morphology).
Etymology
From Middle French erosion, from Latin ērōsiō (“eating away”), derived from ērōdō. The first known occurrence in English was in the 1541 translation by Robert Copland of Guy de Chauliac's medical text The Questyonary of Cyrurygens. Copland used erosion to describe how ulcers developed in the mouth. By 1774 erosion was used outside medical subjects. Oliver Goldsmith employed the term in the more contemporary geological context, in his book Natural History, with the quote : "Bounds are thus put to the erosion of the earth by water."
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eorsion,eroison,erosino,erosionn,erosoin,erossion,erotion,errosion,ersoion,reosion
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of erosion - 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 “erosion”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-R-O-S-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈɹoʊʒən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “evasion” - see the side-by-side comparison. erosion vs evasion
- 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.