excise
/ˈɛkˌsaɪz/
"excise" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“excise” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #20,630 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #20,630
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A tax charged on goods produced within the country (as opposed to customs duties, charged on goods from outside the country).
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 | excise |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɛkˌsaɪz/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #20,630 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “excise” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for excise is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɛkˌsaɪz/. Corpus data places it at rank #20,630 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A tax charged on goods produced within the country (as opposed to customs duties, charged on goods from outside the country).".
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for excise, with forms such as "ecxise", "exccise", and "excies". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "exist", "exile", "excuse", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle Dutch excijs, altered under the influence of Latin excisus (“cut out, removed”), from earlier accijs (“tax”), from Old French acceis (“tax, assessment”) (whence modern French accise), from Vulgar Latin *accensum, ultimately from Latin ad + censu… The correct English form is excise, spelled E-X-C-I-S-E.
Definition
- 1A tax charged on goods produced within the country (as opposed to customs duties, charged on goods from outside the country).
Etymology
From Middle Dutch excijs, altered under the influence of Latin excisus (“cut out, removed”), from earlier accijs (“tax”), from Old French acceis (“tax, assessment”) (whence modern French accise), from Vulgar Latin *accensum, ultimately from Latin ad + census (“tax, census”).
Synonyms
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ecxise,exccise,excies,excisse,excsie,exicse,exxcise,xecise
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of excise - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “excise”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-X-C-I-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɛkˌsaɪz/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “exist” - see the side-by-side comparison. excise vs exist
- 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.