odour

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"odour" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“odour” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #30,518. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#30,518
frequency rank, English
1,431
“O” headwords
6
tracked misspellings
7
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - British standard spelling of odor.

Corpus desk

Index EN-odour · odour · English

odour · rank #30,518 · 6 variants · 7 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #30,518
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 7 pairs
  • VAR-MID 6 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,431
  • PHOTO-FINISH Odell

Nearest frequency peer: Odell (-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.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “odour”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “odour” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

odour vs our
60% similar
odour vs odor
80% similar
odour vs Oder
40% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for odour
PropertyValue
Headwordodour
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters5
Frequency rank#30,518
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs7
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “odour”

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).odourlands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Same rarity band neighbours include “Odell” (#30,517), “ord” (#30,520), “obstructive” (#30,515). Among 1,431 “O” headwords, “odour” is #30,518. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 6 spelling variants around odour, anoun. Corpus frequency is #30,518 among 1,431 “O” headwords. Dominant gloss: "British standard spelling of odor.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for odour, with forms such as "doour", "oddour", and "odoru". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "our", "odor", "Oder", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is odour, spelled O-D-O-U-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    British standard spelling of odor.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how odour appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. So after learning a great deal about iron founding and much more about pike fishing, one regretfully took leave of a shop full of kindly characters and proceeded to a worse lot of odours in the brass foundry.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • doour
  • oddour
  • odoru
  • odourr
  • oduor
  • oodur

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of odour - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

doour2oddour1odoru2odourr1oduor2oodur2
Edit distance from "odour"

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

How do you spell "odour"?
"odour" is spelled O-D-O-U-R.
What does "odour" mean?
As a noun, "odour" means: British standard spelling of odor.
What words are commonly confused with "odour"?
"odour" is commonly confused with "our", "odor", "Oder". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "odour" come from?
"odour" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "odour", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Odell#30,517piped#30,536Maris#30,494Marcy#30,493

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).

shep6 variantsight6 variantssnob6 variantsUSAID6 variants

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list