path
/pɑːθ/
"path" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“path” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,006 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,006
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.
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 | path |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɑːθ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,006 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “path” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for path is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɑːθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,006 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 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for path, with forms such as "apth", "paht", and "pathh". 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, "pt", "put", "pay", 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 path, peth, from Old English pæþ (“path, track”), from Proto-West Germanic *paþ, from Proto-Germanic *paþaz (“path”). The Proto-Germanic term is possibly borrowed from Iranian, from Proto-Iranian *pántaHh, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *pántaH… The correct English form is path, spelled P-A-T-H.
Definition
- 1A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.
- 2A course taken.
- 3A metaphorical course or route; progress.
- 4A method or direction of proceeding.
- 5A Pagan tradition, for example witchcraft, Wicca, druidism, Heathenry.
- 6A human-readable specification for a location within a hierarchical or tree-like structure, such as a file system or as part of a URL.
- 7A sequence of vertices from one vertex to another using the arcs (edges). A path does not visit the same vertex more than once (unless it is a closed path, where only the first and the last vertex are the same).
- 8A continuous map f from the unit interval I=[0,1] to a topological space X.
- 9A slot available for allocation to a railway train over a given route in between other trains.
Etymology
From Middle English path, peth, from Old English pæþ (“path, track”), from Proto-West Germanic *paþ, from Proto-Germanic *paþaz (“path”). The Proto-Germanic term is possibly borrowed from Iranian, from Proto-Iranian *pántaHh, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-European *póntoh₁s, from the root *pent- (“to pass”), however this is disputed. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Paad, Pad (“path”), West Frisian paad (“path”), Dutch pad (“path”), German Pfad (“path”), German Low German Padd (“path”), Luxembourgish Pad (“path”). Indo-Iranian cognates could be Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬧𐬙𐬃 (paṇtā̊, “way”), Old Persian 𐎱𐎰 (p-θ /paθi/)), Sanskrit पन्था (panthā, “path”). See also English find. Doublet of panth.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apth,paht,pathh,patth,ppath,ptah
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of path - 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
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Using “path”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-T-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pɑːθ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “pt” - see the side-by-side comparison. path vs pt
- 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.