oak
/əʊk/
"oak" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“oak” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #5,343) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #5,343
- frequency rank, English
- 15,494
- “O” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A deciduous tree with distinctive deeply lobed leaves, acorns, and notably strong wood, typically of England and northeastern North America, included in genus Quercus.
Corpus desk
Index EN-oak · oak · English
oak · rank #5,343 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,343
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 15,494
- PHOTO-FINISH nominated
Nearest frequency peer: nominated (-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 neighbourhood for “oak”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- mines
mines
94,661 corpus weight
- mixture
mixture
94,660 corpus weight
- nominated
nominated
94,659 corpus weight
- oak
oak
94,658 corpus weight
- parliamenta…
parliamentary
94,657 corpus weight
- patent
patent
94,656 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “oak” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | oak |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əʊk/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,343 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “oak” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for oak is neighbouring look-alikes ("of", "on", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /əʊk/. Frequency #5,343 among 15,494 “O” headwords. 11 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Zero misspellings are on record for oak in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "of", "on", "or", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English ake, hok, oek, ok, oke, from Old English aac, āc, ǣċ, from Proto-West Germanic *aik, from Proto-Germanic *aiks (“oak”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyǵ- (“oak”). Cognates From Proto-Germanic: Scots aik, ake, yik (“oak”), North … The correct English form is oak, spelled O-A-K.
Definition
- 1A deciduous tree with distinctive deeply lobed leaves, acorns, and notably strong wood, typically of England and northeastern North America, included in genus Quercus.
- 2The wood of the oak.
- 3A rich brown color, like that of oak wood.
- 4Any tree of the genus Quercus, in family Fagaceae.
- 5Any tree of other genera and species of trees resembling typical oaks of genus Quercus in some ways.
- 6Any tree of other genera and species of trees resembling typical oaks of genus Quercus in some ways.
- 7Any tree of other genera and species of trees resembling typical oaks of genus Quercus in some ways.
- 8Any tree of other genera and species of trees resembling typical oaks of genus Quercus in some ways.
- 9Any tree of other genera and species of trees resembling typical oaks of genus Quercus in some ways.
- 10The outer (lockable) door of a set of rooms in a college or similar institution. (Often in the phrase sport one's oak.)
- 11The flavor of oak.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how oak appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of t…
Instead there were the white of aspens, streaks of branch and slender trunk glistening from the green of leaves, and the darker green of oaks, and through the middle of this forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which marked the course of cottonwoods and willows.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English ake, hok, oek, ok, oke, from Old English aac, āc, ǣċ, from Proto-West Germanic *aik, from Proto-Germanic *aiks (“oak”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyǵ- (“oak”). Cognates From Proto-Germanic: Scots aik, ake, yik (“oak”), North Frisian iake, iik (“oak”), Saterland Frisian Eeke (“oak”), West Frisian iik (“oak”), Cimbrian aicha, oach (“oak”), Dutch eik (“oak”), German Eiche (“oak”), Luxembourgish Eech (“oak”), Vilamovian aach, aeh́, ǡh́ (“oak”), Danish eg (“oak”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian Nynorsk eik (“oak”), Norwegian Bokmål eik, ek (“oak”), Swedish ek (“oak”). From Proto-Indo-European: Latin aesculus (“Italian oak”), Ancient Greek αἰγίλωψ (aigílōps, “Turkey oak”), Albanian enjë (“English yew; stinking juniper”), Latvian ozols (“oak”), Lithuanian ąžuolas (“oak”).
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "oak", not the corpus desk frequency band.
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.