herring
/ˈhɛɹɪŋ/
"herring" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“herring” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #15,423 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #15,423
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 19
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A type of small, oily fish of the genus Clupea, often used as food.
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 | herring |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhɛɹɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #15,423 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “herring” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for herring is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhɛɹɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,423 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 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 herring, with forms such as "ehrring", "hering", and "herirng". 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 19 confusable-pair relationships, "hiring", "hurting", "hurling", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hering, from Old English hǣring, from Proto-West Germanic *hāring (“herring”), further etymology unknown. Possibly derived from Proto-Germanic *hērą (“hair”) + -ing, due to the similarity of their fine bones to hair. Cognate with Scots h… The correct English form is herring, spelled H-E-R-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1A type of small, oily fish of the genus Clupea, often used as food.
- 2Fish in the family Clupeidae.
- 3Those fish and any other fish similar to those in genus Clupea, many of those in the order Clupeiformes.
Etymology
From Middle English hering, from Old English hǣring, from Proto-West Germanic *hāring (“herring”), further etymology unknown. Possibly derived from Proto-Germanic *hērą (“hair”) + -ing, due to the similarity of their fine bones to hair. Cognate with Scots hering, haring (“herring”), Saterland Frisian Hiering, Häiring (“herring”), West Frisian hjerring (“herring”), Dutch haring (“herring”), German Low German Hereng, Hering (“herring”), German Hering (“herring”), Bavarian Haring (“herring”). Late Latin haringus (whence French hareng, etc.) is borrowed from Germanic.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ehrring,hering,herirng,herrign,herringg,herrinng,herrnig,hherring,hrering
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of herring - 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 “herring”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-E-R-R-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈhɛɹɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hiring” - see the side-by-side comparison. herring vs hiring
- 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.