person
/ˈpɜː.sən/
"person" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“person” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #257 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #257
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
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 | person |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpɜː.sən/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #257 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “person” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for person is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɜː.sən/. Corpus data places it at rank #257 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for person, with forms such as "eprson", "perosn", and "perrson". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "peso", "prison", "poison", 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 persoun, personne et al., from Anglo-Norman parsone, persoun et al. (Old French persone (“human being”), French personne), and its source Latin persōna (“mask used by actor; role, part, character”), perhaps a loanword from Etruscan 𐌘𐌄�… The correct English form is person, spelled P-E-R-S-O-N.
Definition
- 1An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 2An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 3An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 4An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 5An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 6An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 7An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.
- 8The physical body of a being seen as distinct from the mind, character, etc.
- 9Any individual or formal organization with standing before the courts.
- 10The human genitalia; specifically, the penis.
- 11A linguistic category used to distinguish between the speaker of an utterance and those to whom or about whom they are speaking. See grammatical person.
- 12A shoot or bud of a plant; a polyp or zooid of the compound Hydrozoa, Anthozoa, etc.; also, an individual, in the narrowest sense, among the higher animals.
- 13A soulmate; someone, especially a romantic partner, with whom one is exceptionally compatible and connected.
Etymology
From Middle English persoun, personne et al., from Anglo-Norman parsone, persoun et al. (Old French persone (“human being”), French personne), and its source Latin persōna (“mask used by actor; role, part, character”), perhaps a loanword from Etruscan 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (φersu, “mask”). In this sense, displaced native man, which came to mean primarily "adult male" in Middle English; see Old English mann. Doublet of parson and persona.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eprson,perosn,perrson,persno,personn,persson,pesron,pperson,preson
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of person - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “person”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-E-R-S-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpɜː.sən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “peso” - see the side-by-side comparison. person vs peso
- 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.