keg
/kɛɡ/
"keg" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“keg” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #26,479 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #26,479
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A round, traditionally wooden container of lesser capacity than a barrel, often used to store beer.
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 | keg |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɛɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #26,479 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “keg” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for keg is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɛɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,479 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A round, traditionally wooden container of lesser capacity than a barrel, often used to store beer.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for keg, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "kI", "ky", "ko", 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 kag, from Old Norse kaggi (“keg”), likely a diminutive of Proto-Germanic *kagô (“bush, branch, stalk, stump”). Cognate with Icelandic kaggi (“keg; cask”), Norwegian kagg (“keg”), Swedish kagge (“keg”), Low German kag (“vessel; craft”), D… The correct English form is keg, spelled K-E-G.
Definition
- 1A round, traditionally wooden container of lesser capacity than a barrel, often used to store beer.
Etymology
From Middle English kag, from Old Norse kaggi (“keg”), likely a diminutive of Proto-Germanic *kagô (“bush, branch, stalk, stump”). Cognate with Icelandic kaggi (“keg; cask”), Norwegian kagg (“keg”), Swedish kagge (“keg”), Low German kag (“vessel; craft”), Dutch kaag (“vessel; craft”). Compare also English cag and chag. The modern form keg with /ɛ/ is due to a dialectal raising of /a///æ/ to /ɛ/ before velars (cf. fleg); the expected form is preserved in dialectal /kæɡ/, while /keɪɡ/ reflects further raising that occurred in some dialects.
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 “keg”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is K-E-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kɛɡ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “kI” - see the side-by-side comparison. keg vs kI
- 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.