hip
/hɪp/
"hip" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hip” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #3,237) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #3,237
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The outward-projecting parts of the pelvis and top of the femur and the overlying tissue.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hip · hip · English
hip · rank #3,237 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #3,237
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH hills
Nearest frequency peer: hills (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “hip”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- gear
gear
96,767 corpus weight
- Georgia
Georgia
96,766 corpus weight
- hills
hills
96,765 corpus weight
- hip
hip
96,764 corpus weight
- hitting
hitting
96,763 corpus weight
- increases
increases
96,762 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “hip” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | hip |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hɪp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #3,237 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hip” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for hip is neighbouring look-alikes ("ho", "HR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /hɪp/. Frequency #3,237 among 2,646 “H” headwords. 4 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No generated misspelling entries exist for hip in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ho", "HR", "HP", 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 English hipe, hupe, from Old English hype, from Proto-Germanic *hupiz (compare Dutch heup, Low German Huop, German Hüfte), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewb- (compare Welsh cysgu (“to sleep”), Latin cubāre (“to lie”), Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos, “h… The correct English form is hip, spelled H-I-P.
Definition
- 1The outward-projecting parts of the pelvis and top of the femur and the overlying tissue.
- 2The inclined external angle formed by the intersection of two sloping roof planes.
- 3In a bridge truss, the place where an inclined end post meets the top chord.
- 4A drug addict, especially someone addicted to a narcotic like heroin.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hip appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
in all bridges preference will be given to designs having struts for hip verticals
Ike explained to me that the Mexican government issued permits to hips allowing them a definite quantity of morphine per month at wholesale prices.
Etymology
From Middle English hipe, hupe, from Old English hype, from Proto-Germanic *hupiz (compare Dutch heup, Low German Huop, German Hüfte), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewb- (compare Welsh cysgu (“to sleep”), Latin cubāre (“to lie”), Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos, “hollow in the hips”), Albanian sup (“shoulder”), Sanskrit शुप्ति (śúpti, “shoulder”)), from *ḱew- (“to bend”). More at high. The sense "drug addict" derives from addicts lying on their hips while using certain drugs such as opium.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hip", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "hip". Here's where to go from here.
- "hip" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "ho". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #3,237 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "H" letter cohort. H–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.