-ery
/əɹi/
"ery" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“-ery” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a suffix. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Added to occupational etc. nouns to form other nouns meaning the "art, craft, or practice of."
Corpus desk
Index EN-ery · -ery · English
-ery · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "-" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | -ery |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Suffix |
| IPA | /əɹi/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “-ery” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
-ery is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as asuffix, transcribed /əɹi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for -ery in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English -erie, from Anglo-Norman -erie, which is from -ier + -ie; a suffix forming abstract nouns. The suffix first occurs in loans from Old French into Middle English, but becomes productive within English by the 16th century, in some instances… The correct English form is -ery, spelled --E-R-Y.
Definition
- 1Added to occupational etc. nouns to form other nouns meaning the "art, craft, or practice of."
- 2Added to verbs to form nouns meaning "place of" (an art, craft, or practice).
- 3Added to nouns to form other nouns meaning "a class, group, or collection of."
- 4Added to nouns to form other nouns meaning "behavior characteristic of."
Etymology
From Middle English -erie, from Anglo-Norman -erie, which is from -ier + -ie; a suffix forming abstract nouns. The suffix first occurs in loans from Old French into Middle English, but becomes productive within English by the 16th century, in some instances properly a combination of the agent suffix -er with -y as in bakery, brewery, but also as a single suffix in terms like slavery, machinery (which are not derived from slaver or machiner). By surface analysis, -er + -y.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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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.