jot
/d͡ʒɒt/
"jot" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“jot” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #34,554 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #34,554
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.
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 | jot |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /d͡ʒɒt/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #34,554 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “jot” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for jot is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /d͡ʒɒt/. Corpus data places it at rank #34,554 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for jot in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Jr", "Ju", "JV", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is borrowed from Latin iōta (“the letter iota of the Ancient Greek alphabet”), from Ancient Greek ἰῶτα (iôta, “ninth letter of the Ancient Greek alphabet; (figurative) very small part of writing, jot”), from Phoenician 𐤉 (y, “tenth letter of the … The correct English form is jot, spelled J-O-T.
Definition
- 1The smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.
- 2A small, or the smallest, amount of a thing; a bit, a whit.
- 3A small, or the smallest, amount of a thing; a bit, a whit.
- 4A brief and hurriedly written note.
Etymology
The noun is borrowed from Latin iōta (“the letter iota of the Ancient Greek alphabet”), from Ancient Greek ἰῶτα (iôta, “ninth letter of the Ancient Greek alphabet; (figurative) very small part of writing, jot”), from Phoenician 𐤉 (y, “tenth letter of the Phoenician abjad, yodh”). Doublet of iota and yodh. Etymology 1 sense 3 (“brief and hurriedly written note”) is derived from the verb. The verb is probably borrowed from Scots jot, from English jot (noun): see above.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “jot”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is J-O-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /d͡ʒɒt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Jr” - see the side-by-side comparison. jot vs Jr
- 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.