jot
/d͡ʒɒt/
"jot" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“jot” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #34,554) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #34,554
- frequency rank, English
- 796
- “J” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.
Corpus desk
Index EN-jot · jot · English
jot · rank #34,554 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #34,554
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 796
- PHOTO-FINISH Julianne
Nearest frequency peer: Julianne (+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 “jot”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- ITC
ITC
65,452 corpus weight
- iterative
iterative
65,451 corpus weight
- Jacoby
Jacoby
65,450 corpus weight
- Jaya
Jaya
65,449 corpus weight
- jot
jot
65,447 corpus weight
- Julianne
Julianne
65,446 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “jot” 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 | 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) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “jot”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for jot is neighbouring look-alikes ("Jr", "Ju", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /d͡ʒɒt/. Frequency #34,554 among 796 “J” headwords. 4 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how jot appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
This bond doth giue thee here no iote of blood, / The vvords expreſly are a pound of fleſh: / Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of fleſh, / But in the cutting of it, if thou doſt ſhed / One drop of Chriſtian blood, thy lands and goods / Are by the lavves of Venice, confiſcate / Vnto the State of Venice.
For verily I ſay vnto you, Till heauen and earth paſſe, one iote or one tittle, ſhall in no wiſe paſſe from the law, till all be fulfilled.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "jot", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).