pea

/piː/

//piː// noun

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

"pea" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“pea” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #14,184) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#14,184
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of certain plants of the family Fabaceae: Pisum sativum and others.

Corpus desk

Index EN-pea · pea · English

pea · rank #14,184 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #14,184
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH pearls

Nearest frequency peer: pearls (+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 neighbours of confusable “pea”

Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below

corpus weight

What this shows Bars place “pea” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.

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).

pea vs PM
0% similar
pea vs PP
0% similar
pea vs PR
0% similar

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

Key facts for pea
PropertyValue
Headwordpea
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/piː/
Letters3
Frequency rank#14,184
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Corpus rank beside confusables of “pea”

This scale runs from the tiny cluster of words that carry ordinary speech (left) to the long tail of words almost nobody reaches for (right).pealands here:

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Same rarity band neighbours include “pearls” (#14,185), “pastoral” (#14,182), “physiological” (#14,186). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “pea” is #14,184. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for pea is neighbouring look-alikes ("PM", "PP", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /piː/. Frequency #14,184 among 4,417 “P” headwords. 6 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No misspelling variants are generated for pea in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PM", "PP", "PR", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Ancient Greek πίσον (píson)bor. Latin pisum Late Latin pisader. Old English pise Middle English pese English peasebf. English pea Back-formation from pease, an original singular reinterpreted as a plural. Further from Middle English pese (“a … The correct English form is pea, spelled P-E-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any of certain plants of the family Fabaceae: Pisum sativum and others.
  2. 2
    Any of certain plants of the family Fabaceae: Pisum sativum and others.
  3. 3
    The edible seed of Pisum sativum.
  4. 4
    The edible seed of various other pea plants.
  5. 5
    Any of several varieties of bean.
  6. 6
    Money.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Below, long rows of peas put forth their white-winged flowers, tempting the small butterflies to flutter round their inanimate likenesses;...
  2. peas and rice

Etymology

Etymology tree Ancient Greek πίσον (píson)bor. Latin pisum Late Latin pisader. Old English pise Middle English pese English peasebf. English pea Back-formation from pease, an original singular reinterpreted as a plural. Further from Middle English pese (“a pea”), from Old English pise, from Latin pisa, pisum, from Ancient Greek πίσον (píson).

This word in other languages

guisante(Español)pois(Français)Erbse(Deutsch)ervilha(Português)

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 "pea"?
"pea" is spelled P-E-A. The IPA pronunciation is /piː/.
What does "pea" mean?
As a noun, "pea" means: Any of certain plants of the family Fabaceae: Pisum sativum and others.
What words are commonly confused with "pea"?
"pea" is commonly confused with "PM", "PP", "PR". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "pea"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pea" is /piː/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "pea"?
Etymology tree Ancient Greek πίσον (píson)bor. Latin pisum Late Latin pisader. Old English pise Middle English pese English peasebf. English pea Back-formation from pease, an original singular reinterpreted as a plural. Further from Middle English... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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 "pea", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

poo#14,190lax#14,157icy#14,141hah#14,129

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list