nurse
/nɜːs/
"nurse" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“nurse” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,640 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,640
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person involved in providing direct care for the sick:
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 | nurse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /nɜːs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,640 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “nurse” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for nurse is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /nɜːs/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,640 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for nurse, with forms such as "nnurse", "nruse", and "nures". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "nuts", "nursery", "Nur", 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 norice, from Old French norrice, from Late Latin nūtrīcia, noun based on Latin nūtrīcius (“that which nourishes”), from nūtrīx (“wet nurse”), from nūtriō (“to suckle”). The correct English form is nurse, spelled N-U-R-S-E.
Definition
- 1A person involved in providing direct care for the sick:
- 2A person involved in providing direct care for the sick:
- 3A person involved in providing direct care for the sick:
- 4A person (usually a woman) who takes care of other people’s children.
- 5One who, or that which, brings up, rears, causes to grow, trains, or fosters.
- 6A shrub or tree that protects a young plant.
- 7A lieutenant or first officer who takes command when the captain is unfit for his place.
- 8A larva of certain trematodes, which produces cercariae by asexual reproduction.
- 9A wet nurse.
Etymology
From Middle English norice, from Old French norrice, from Late Latin nūtrīcia, noun based on Latin nūtrīcius (“that which nourishes”), from nūtrīx (“wet nurse”), from nūtriō (“to suckle”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: nnurse,nruse,nures,nurrse,nursse,nusre,unrse
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of nurse - 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 “nurse”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-U-R-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /nɜːs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “nuts” - see the side-by-side comparison. nurse vs nuts
- 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.