planet
/ˈplænɪt/
"planet" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“planet” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,123 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,123
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Each of the seven major bodies which move relative to the fixed stars in the night sky—the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
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 | planet |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈplænɪt/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,123 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “planet” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for planet is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈplænɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,123 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 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 planet, with forms such as "lpanet", "palnet", and "plaent". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "plat", "plans", "plant", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English planete, from Old French planete, from Latin planeta, planetes, from Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planḗtēs, “wanderer”) (itself an ellipsis of ἀστέρες πλανῆται (astéres planêtai, “wandering stars”)), from Ancient Greek πλανάω (planáō, “wander… The correct English form is planet, spelled P-L-A-N-E-T.
Definition
- 1Each of the seven major bodies which move relative to the fixed stars in the night sky—the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
- 2Any body that orbits the Sun, including the asteroids (as minor planets) and sometimes the moons of those bodies (as satellite planets)
- 3A body which is massive enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium (generally resulting in being an ellipsoid) but not enough to attain nuclear fusion and, in IAU usage, which directly orbits a star (or multiple star) and dominates the region of its orbit; specifically, in the case of the Solar system, the eight major bodies of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
- 4construed with the or this: The Earth.
Etymology
From Middle English planete, from Old French planete, from Latin planeta, planetes, from Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planḗtēs, “wanderer”) (itself an ellipsis of ἀστέρες πλανῆται (astéres planêtai, “wandering stars”)), from Ancient Greek πλανάω (planáō, “wander about, stray”), of unknown origin. Cognate with Latin pālor (“wander about, stray”), Old Norse flana (“to rush about”), and Norwegian flanta (“to wander about”). More at flaunt. So called because they have apparent motion, unlike the "fixed" stars. Originally including also the moon and sun but not the Earth; modern scientific sense of "world that orbits a star" is from 1630s in English. The Greek word is an enlarged form of πλάνης (plánēs, “who wanders around, wanderer”), also "wandering star, planet", in medicine "unstable temperature."
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpanet,palnet,plaent,planett,plannet,plante,pllanet,plnaet,pplanet
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of planet - 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 “planet”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-L-A-N-E-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈplænɪt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “plat” - see the side-by-side comparison. planet vs plat
- 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.