flick
/flɪk/
"flick" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“flick” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,423 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,423
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A short, quick movement, especially a brush, sweep, or flip.
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 | flick |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /flɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #12,423 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “flick” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for flick is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /flɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,423 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for flick, with forms such as "fflick", "filck", and "flcik". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fuck", "flip", "flies", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English flykke (“light blow or stroke”). Later uses apparently interpreted as a back-formation from flicker. The use of flick to mean a film or movie derives from the fact that early films had a low frame rate, thus causing the film to "flick" r… The correct English form is flick, spelled F-L-I-C-K.
Definition
- 1A short, quick movement, especially a brush, sweep, or flip.
- 2A motion picture, movie, film; (in plural, usually preceded by "the") movie theater, cinema.
- 3A cut that lands with the point, often involving a whip of the foible of the blade to strike at a concealed target.
- 4A powerful underarm volley shot.
- 5The act of pressing a place on a touch screen device.
- 6A flitch.
- 7A unit of time, equal to 1/705,600,000 of a second
- 8A chap or fellow; sometimes as a friendly term of address.
- 9A photo.
Etymology
From Middle English flykke (“light blow or stroke”). Later uses apparently interpreted as a back-formation from flicker. The use of flick to mean a film or movie derives from the fact that early films had a low frame rate, thus causing the film to "flick" rapidly when projected onto a screen.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: fflick,filck,flcik,flicck,flickk,flikc,fllick,lfick
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of flick - 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 “flick”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-L-I-C-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /flɪk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “fuck” - see the side-by-side comparison. flick vs fuck
- 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.