onion
/ˈʌn.jən/
"onion" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“onion” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,464 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,464
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.
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 | onion |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈʌn.jən/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #8,464 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “onion” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for onion is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʌn.jən/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,464 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 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 onion, with forms such as "noion", "oinon", and "onino". 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 14 confusable-pair relationships, "ono", "onto", "Oxon", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English onyoun, oynoun, from Old French oignon, from Latin ūniōnem, accusative of ūniō (“onion”), which had also been borrowed into Old English as yne, ynnelēac (“onion”) (> Middle English hynne-leac, henne-leac). Also displaced Middle English k… The correct English form is onion, spelled O-N-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.
- 2The bulb of such a plant.
- 3Any of various plants, mostly of the genus Allium, that are more or less similar to Allium cepa.
- 4Of a drug, an ounce.
- 5A ball.
- 6A watch-seal.
- 7Alternative letter-case form of Onion (“an inhabitant of Bermuda; a Bermudian”).
- 8Soy, particularly when used in compound words related to the soy boy stereotype.
Etymology
From Middle English onyoun, oynoun, from Old French oignon, from Latin ūniōnem, accusative of ūniō (“onion”), which had also been borrowed into Old English as yne, ynnelēac (“onion”) (> Middle English hynne-leac, henne-leac). Also displaced Middle English knelek (literally “knee-leek”) and the inherited term ramsons. * (soy): Stems from a 4chan word filter which changes the word soy to onions. The word filter was implemented in relation to the "alpha onion eater" meme, which is depicted as the direct opposite of the soy boy.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: noion,oinon,onino,onionn,onnion,onoin
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of onion - 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.
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 "onion"?
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Using “onion”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-N-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈʌn.jən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ono” - see the side-by-side comparison. onion vs ono
- 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.