ides
/aɪdz/
"ides" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ides” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #44,856) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #44,856
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The notional full-moon day of a Roman month, occurring on the 15th day of the four original 31-day months (March, May, Quintilis or July, and October) and on the 13th day of all other months.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ides · ides · English
ides · rank #44,856 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #44,856
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH igloo
Nearest frequency peer: igloo (+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 neighbours of confusable “ides”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Huw
Huw
55,149 corpus weight
- Hynes
Hynes
55,148 corpus weight
- hyphen
hyphen
55,147 corpus weight
- ides
ides
55,145 corpus weight
- igloo
igloo
55,144 corpus weight
- impregnable
impregnable
55,142 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “ides” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | ides |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /aɪdz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #44,856 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “ides”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ides is neighbouring look-alikes ("is", "its", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /aɪdz/. Frequency #44,856 among 2,140 “I” headwords. Gloss: "The notional full-moon day of a Roman month, occurring on the 15th day of the four original 31-day months (March, May, Quintilis or July, and October) and on the 13th day of all other months.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for ides, with forms such as "iddes", "idess", and "idse". 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, "is", "its", "IDK", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ides, idus, from Anglo-Norman and Old French ides, from Latin īdūs, a fourth-declension plurale tantum, from the Latin practice of treating most recurring calendrical days as plurals. The Latin term is cognate with Oscan eiduis, both per… The correct English form is ides, spelled I-D-E-S.
Definition
- 1The notional full-moon day of a Roman month, occurring on the 15th day of the four original 31-day months (March, May, Quintilis or July, and October) and on the 13th day of all other months.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ides appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Þa monðas þe habbað iiii nonas æfter kalendas... habbað to idus xiii dagas and to ii kalendas eahtatyne. Those months that have 4 nones after the kalends... have 13 days to the ides and eighteen to the second kalends.
The Roman Month its several days divides By reckoning backwards, Calends, Nones, and Ides.
Etymology
From Middle English ides, idus, from Anglo-Norman and Old French ides, from Latin īdūs, a fourth-declension plurale tantum, from the Latin practice of treating most recurring calendrical days as plurals. The Latin term is cognate with Oscan eiduis, both perhaps deriving from an unknown Etruscan term. Middle English and Old French also used the singular form ide.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- iddes
- idess
- idse
- ieds
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of ides - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ides", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).