node
/nəʊd/
"node" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“node” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,583 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,583
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A knot, knob, protuberance or swelling.
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 | node |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /nəʊd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #8,583 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “node” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for node is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /nəʊd/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,583 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 16 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for node, with forms such as "ndoe", "nnode", and "nodde". 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, "not", "now", "non", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English node, borrowed from Latin nōdus. Doublet of knot, knout, and nodus. The correct English form is node, spelled N-O-D-E.
Definition
- 1A knot, knob, protuberance or swelling.
- 2The point where the orbit of a planet, as viewed from the Sun, intersects the ecliptic. The ascending and descending nodes refer respectively to the points where the planet moves from South to North and N to S; their respective symbols are ☊ and ☋.
- 3A leaf node.
- 4A computer or other device attached to a network.
- 5The point at which the lines of a funicular machine meet from different angular directions.
- 6The point at which a curve crosses itself, being a double point of the curve. See crunode and acnode.
- 7A similar point on a surface, where there is more than one tangent-plane.
- 8A vertex or a leaf in a graph of a network, or other element in a data structure.
- 9A hard concretion or incrustation which forms upon bones attacked with rheumatism, gout, or syphilis; sometimes also, a swelling in the neighborhood of a joint.
- 10A point along a standing wave where the wave has minimal amplitude.
- 11The knot, intrigue, or plot of a dramatic work.
- 12A hole in the gnomon of a sundial, through which passes the ray of light which marks the hour of the day, the parallels of the Sun's declination, its place in the ecliptic, etc.
- 13The word of interest in a KWIC, surrounded by left and right cotexts.
- 14A region of an electric circuit connected only by (ideal) wires (i.e. the voltage between any two points on the same node must be zero).
- 15A point in a parse tree that can be assigned a syntactic category label.
- 16A point in a cladogram from which two clades branch, representing the presumed ancestor.
Etymology
From Middle English node, borrowed from Latin nōdus. Doublet of knot, knout, and nodus.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ndoe,nnode,nodde,noed,onde
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of node - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “node”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-O-D-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /nəʊd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “not” - see the side-by-side comparison. node vs not
- 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.