eth
/ɛð/
"eth" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“eth” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #22,077 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #22,077
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A letter (capital Ð, small ð) introduced into Old English to represent its dental fricative, then not distinguished from the letter thorn, no longer used in English but still in modern use in Icela...
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 | eth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɛð/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #22,077 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “eth” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for eth is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɛð/. Corpus data places it at rank #22,077 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A letter (capital Ð, small ð) introduced into Old English to represent its dental fricative, then not distinguished from the letter thorn, no longer used in English but still in modern use in Icela...".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for eth, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ex", "EU", "EV", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: The sound /ɛ/ followed by the sound of the letter, by analogy with other letter names, such as those of f, l, and m. The correct English form is eth, spelled E-T-H.
Definition
- 1A letter (capital Ð, small ð) introduced into Old English to represent its dental fricative, then not distinguished from the letter thorn, no longer used in English but still in modern use in Icelandic, the IPA and other phonetic alphabets to represent the voiced dental fricative "th" sound as in the English word then. The letter is also used in Faroese, but is generally silent in that language.
Etymology
The sound /ɛ/ followed by the sound of the letter, by analogy with other letter names, such as those of f, l, and m.
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); 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 “eth”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-T-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɛð/ (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. eth 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.