percent
/pəˈsɛnt/
"percent" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“percent” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #974 in English word frequency and used as an adverb.
- #974
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - For every hundred (used with preceding numeral to form a noun phrase expressing a proportion).
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 | percent |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /pəˈsɛnt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #974 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “percent” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for percent is 7 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pəˈsɛnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #974 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "For every hundred (used with preceding numeral to form a noun phrase expressing a proportion).".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for percent, with forms such as "eprcent", "pecrent", and "perccent". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "perfect", "pervert", "parent", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”). The correct English form is percent, spelled P-E-R-C-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1For every hundred (used with preceding numeral to form a noun phrase expressing a proportion).
Etymology
From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eprcent,pecrent,perccent,percennt,percentt,percetn,percnet,perecnt,perrcent,ppercent,precent
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of percent - 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 “percent”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-E-R-C-E-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pəˈsɛnt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “perfect” - see the side-by-side comparison. percent vs perfect
- 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.