Korea
/kəˈɹi.ə/
"korea" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Korea” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,258 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #2,258
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A geographic region consisting of two countries in East Asia, commonly known as South Korea and North Korea; formerly a single country.
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 | Korea |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /kəˈɹi.ə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,258 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Korea” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Korea is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kəˈɹi.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,258 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for Korea, with forms such as "kkorea", "koera", and "korae". 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 14 confusable-pair relationships, "KORS", "Kota", "Kyra", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested as Core in the 1598 English translation of the 1596 Itinerario of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, from the original Dutch Core, itself from Portuguese according to van Linschoten's account. The spelling Corea was more common in Early Modern Engli… The correct English form is Korea, spelled K-O-R-E-A.
Definition
- 1A geographic region consisting of two countries in East Asia, commonly known as South Korea and North Korea; formerly a single country.
- 2A geographic region consisting of two countries in East Asia, commonly known as South Korea and North Korea; formerly a single country.
- 3A geographic region consisting of two countries in East Asia, commonly known as South Korea and North Korea; formerly a single country.
- 4A peninsula in East Asia, containing the countries of North Korea and South Korea; in full, Korean Peninsula.
Etymology
First attested as Core in the 1598 English translation of the 1596 Itinerario of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, from the original Dutch Core, itself from Portuguese according to van Linschoten's account. The spelling Corea was more common in Early Modern English, likely through Core + -ia. Ultimately a sixteenth-century borrowing by Europeans from some variety of Chinese. Compare Mandarin 高麗 /高丽 (Gāolí) but especially Hokkien 高麗 /高丽 (Ko-lê), which matches the Dutch-Portuguese vowels exactly. These are Chinese pronunciations of Sino-Korean 고려(高麗) (Goryeo), Korea's official name between 918 and 1394 and still used by Chinese people to refer to the country for centuries thereafter; this itself being a shortening of 高句麗 (“Goguryeo”), an ancient Korean kingdom in the first millennium. Doublet of Goryeo, directly from Korean. Some Korean authors claim an Arabic intermediary instead, but this is impossible because the actual medieval Arabic word for Korea was a variant of السيلى (al-sīlā, see also Silla).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: kkorea,koera,korae,korrea,kroea,okrea
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Korea - 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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Using “Korea”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is K-O-R-E-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kəˈɹi.ə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “KORS” - see the side-by-side comparison. Korea vs KORS
- 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.