est
/ɛst/
"est" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“est” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,962 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,962
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Grace; favour.
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 | est |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɛst/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,962 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “est” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for est is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɛst/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,962 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Grace; favour.".
No misspelling variants are generated for est in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ex", "et", "EU", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English este, from Old English ēst (“will, consent, favour”), from Proto-West Germanic *ansti, from Proto-Germanic *anstiz (“favour, affection”), from Proto-Indo-European *ān- (“to notice; face, mouth”) or from *h₃neh₂- (“to bestow, offer, help;… The correct English form is est, spelled E-S-T.
Definition
- 1Grace; favour.
Etymology
From Middle English este, from Old English ēst (“will, consent, favour”), from Proto-West Germanic *ansti, from Proto-Germanic *anstiz (“favour, affection”), from Proto-Indo-European *ān- (“to notice; face, mouth”) or from *h₃neh₂- (“to bestow, offer, help; to enjoy”). Cognate with Icelandic ást (“affection, love”), Dutch gunst (“favour, grace, courtesy, privilege”), German Gunst (“favour, goodwill, boon”), Danish yndest (“favour”), Swedish ynnest (“favour, indulgence, grace”).
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 “est”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɛst/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ex” - see the side-by-side comparison. est vs ex
- 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.