home
/həʊm/
"home" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“home” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #149 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #149
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A dwelling.
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 | home |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /həʊm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #149 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “home” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for home is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /həʊm/. Corpus data places it at rank #149 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for home, with forms such as "hhome", "hmoe", and "hoem". 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, "how", "hot", "hop", 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 hōm, from Old English hām, from Proto-West Germanic *haim, from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (“home, village”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos (“village, home”), from the root *tḱey-. Doublet of heyem. Cognates Cognate with Scots hame (“home… The correct English form is home, spelled H-O-M-E.
Definition
- 1A dwelling.
- 2A dwelling.
- 3A dwelling.
- 4A dwelling.
- 5A dwelling.
- 6A dwelling.
- 7A dwelling.
- 8One’s native land; the place or country in which one dwells; the place where one’s ancestors dwell or dwelt.
- 9The locality where a thing is usually found, or was first found, or where it is naturally abundant; habitat; seat.
- 10A focus point.
- 11A focus point.
- 12A focus point.
- 13A focus point.
- 14A focus point.
- 15Clipping of home directory.
Etymology
From Middle English hōm, from Old English hām, from Proto-West Germanic *haim, from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (“home, village”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos (“village, home”), from the root *tḱey-. Doublet of heyem. Cognates Cognate with Scots hame (“home”), Yola haime, hime, hyme (“home”), Saterland Frisian Heem (“home”), Alemannic German haim, hei, heim, hemmu (“home”), Bavarian hama, hame (“home”), Cimbrian hòam, huam (“home”), Dutch heem, heim (“home”), German Heim (“home”), Limburgish heim, Héïm (“home”), Luxembourgish Heem (“home”), Mòcheno hoa'm (“home”), Vilamovian ham, hām, haom (“home”), Yiddish היים (heym, “home”), Danish hjem (“home”), Faroese, Icelandic heim (“home”), heimur (“world”), Norwegian Bokmål heim, hjem (“home”), Norwegian Nynorsk heim (“home”), Swedish hem (“home”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌼𐍃 (haims, “village”), Irish caoimh (“dear”), Lithuanian kaimas (“village”), šeima (“family”), Albanian komb (“nation, people”), Old Church Slavonic сѣмь (sěmĭ, “seed”), Ancient Greek κώμη (kṓmē, “village”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱey- (“to lie”) (compare Hittite [script needed] (kittari, “it lies”), Ancient Greek κεῖμαι (keîmai, “to lie down”), Latin civis (“citizen”), Avestan 𐬯𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬈 (saēte, “he lies, rests”), Sanskrit शये (śáye, “he lies”)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhome,hmoe,hoem,ohme
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of home - 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
How do you spell "home"?
What does "home" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "home"?
How do you pronounce "home"?
What is the origin of the word "home"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “home”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /həʊm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “how” - see the side-by-side comparison. home vs how
- 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.