ground
/ɡɹaʊnd/
"ground" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ground” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #735 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #735
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground.
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 | ground |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɹaʊnd/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #735 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ground” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ground is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɹaʊnd/. Corpus data places it at rank #735 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 23 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for ground, with forms such as "gground", "gorund", and "gronud". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "group", "grown", "grunt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem-der. Proto-Germanic *grunduz Old English grund Middle English ground English ground From Middle English ground, from Old English grund, from Proto-West Germanic *grundu, from Proto-Germanic *grunduz. Cognate with We… The correct English form is ground, spelled G-R-O-U-N-D.
Definition
- 1The surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground.
- 2Terrain.
- 3Soil, earth.
- 4The bottom of a body of water.
- 5Basis, foundation, groundwork, legwork.
- 6Reason, (epistemic) justification, cause.
- 7Background, context, framework, surroundings.
- 8The area on which a battle is fought, particularly as referring to the area occupied by one side or the other. Often, according to the eventualities, "to give ground" or "to gain ground".
- 9Advantage given or gained in any contest; e.g. in football, chess, debate or academic discourse.
- 10A place suited to a specified activity.
- 11The plain surface upon which the figures of an artistic composition are set.
- 12A flat surface upon which figures are raised in relief.
- 13The net of small meshes upon which the embroidered pattern is applied.
- 14A gummy substance spread over the surface of a metal to be etched, to prevent the acid from eating except where an opening is made by the needle.
- 15One of the pieces of wood, flush with the plastering, to which mouldings etc. are attached.
- 16A soccer stadium.
- 17An electrical conductor connected to the earth, or a large conductor whose electrical potential is taken as zero (such as a steel chassis).
- 18Electric shock.
- 19The area of grass on which a match is played (a cricket field); the entire arena in which it is played; the part of the field behind a batsman's popping crease where he can not be run out (hence to make one's ground).
- 20A composition in which the bass, consisting of a few bars of independent notes, is continually repeated to a varying melody.
- 21The tune on which descants are raised; the plain song.
- 22The pit of a theatre.
- 23Synonym of munny (“land measure”).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem-der. Proto-Germanic *grunduz Old English grund Middle English ground English ground From Middle English ground, from Old English grund, from Proto-West Germanic *grundu, from Proto-Germanic *grunduz. Cognate with West Frisian grûn, Dutch grond and German Grund.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: gground,gorund,gronud,groudn,groundd,grounnd,grround,gruond,rgound
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of ground - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “ground”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-R-O-U-N-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɡɹaʊnd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “group” - see the side-by-side comparison. ground vs group
- 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.