personality
/pɜː.səˈnæ.lə.tɪ/
"personality" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“personality” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,750 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,750
- frequency rank, English
- 11
- letters
- 17
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Of people, a set of non-physical psychological and social qualities that make one person distinct from another.
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 | personality |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɜː.səˈnæ.lə.tɪ/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #2,750 |
| Misspellings tracked | 17 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “personality” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for personality is 11 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɜː.səˈnæ.lə.tɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,750 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 17 likely wrong-spelling variants for personality, with forms such as "eprsonality", "perosnality", and "perrsonality". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "personally", "personalize", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English personalite, from Middle French [Term?], from Latin persōnālitās. First attested in the late 14th century. By surface analysis, personal + -ity. The correct English form is personality, spelled P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L-I-T-Y.
Definition
- 1Of people, a set of non-physical psychological and social qualities that make one person distinct from another.
- 2Of people, charisma; qualities that make a person stand out from the crowd.
- 3Of inanimate or abstract things, a set of qualities that make something distinctive or interesting.
- 4An assumed role or manner of behavior.
- 5A celebrity, especially one with a strong media presence (e.g. an actor, singer or sports player).
- 6Something said or written which refers to the person, conduct, etc., of some individual, especially something of a disparaging or offensive nature; personal remarks.
- 7That quality of a law which concerns the condition, state, and capacity of persons.
- 8A set of female breasts; a rack; alternatively, (typically in the plural) an individual breast.
Etymology
From Middle English personalite, from Middle French [Term?], from Latin persōnālitās. First attested in the late 14th century. By surface analysis, personal + -ity.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eprsonality,perosnality,perrsonality,persnoality,persoanlity,personailty,personalitty,personalityy,personaliyt,personallity,personaltiy,personlaity,personnality,perssonality,pesronality,ppersonality,presonality
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of personality - 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 "personality"?
What does "personality" mean?
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Using “personality”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L-I-T-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pɜː.səˈnæ.lə.tɪ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “personally” - see the side-by-side comparison. personality vs personally
- 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.