police

/pəˈliːs/

//pəˈliːs// noun

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

"police" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“police” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #471. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#471
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords
8
tracked misspellings
14
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.

Corpus desk

Index EN-police · police · English

police · rank #471 · 8 variants · 14 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #471
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 14 pairs
  • VAR-MID 8 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH morning

Nearest frequency peer: morning (-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.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “police”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “police” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

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).

police vs price
67% similar
police vs polio
67% similar
police vs ponce
67% similar

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

Key facts for police
PropertyValue
Headwordpolice
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/pəˈliːs/
Letters6
Frequency rank#471
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs14
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “police”

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).policelands here:

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

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Same rarity band neighbours include “morning” (#470), “short” (#472), “million” (#469). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “police” is #471. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 8 spelling variants around police (IPA /pəˈliːs/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #471 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 10 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for police, with forms such as "oplice", "ploice", and "poilce". 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 14 confusable-pair relationships, "price", "polio", "ponce", 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 French police, from Latin polītīa (“state, government”), from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía). Doublet of policy, polis (“police”), and polity. The correct English form is police, spelled P-O-L-I-C-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.
  2. 2
    A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.
  3. 3
    A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.
  4. 4
    A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.
  5. 5
    The staff of such a department or agency, particularly its officers; (regional, chiefly US, Caribbean, Jamaica, Scotland, countable) an individual police officer.
  6. 6
    People who try to enforce norms or standards as if granted authority similar to the police.
  7. 7
    Cleanup of a military facility, as a formal duty.
  8. 8
    Synonym of administration, the regulation of a community or society.
  9. 9
    Alternative form of policy.
  10. 10
    Alternative form of polity, civilization, a regulated community.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. There are nine Principles of Police: ... 7 To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen, in the intere…
  2. ‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?

Etymology

From Middle French police, from Latin polītīa (“state, government”), from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía). Doublet of policy, polis (“police”), and polity.

Synonyms

police officer5-OBabylonbaconBig Blue MachineBillboydemconstabularydibbledonut patrolducks and geeseecilopesclopfedsfilthfive-ofuzzgardagardaigendarmerieheatlawmaavehmonarchOld Billpigliceplodpo-popolicepolice departmentpolice forcepolice servicepolisthin blue lineany plural synonym of police officer

This word in other languages

policía(Español)police(Français)Polizei(Deutsch)polícia(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • oplice
  • ploice
  • poilce
  • polcie
  • policce
  • poliec
  • pollice
  • ppolice

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of police - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

oplice2ploice2poilce2polcie2policce1poliec2pollice1ppolice1
Edit distance from "police"

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 "police"?
"police" is spelled P-O-L-I-C-E. The IPA pronunciation is /pəˈliːs/.
What does "police" mean?
As a noun, "police" means: A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.
What words are commonly confused with "police"?
"police" is commonly confused with "price", "polio", "ponce". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "police"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "police" is /pəˈliːs/. 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 "police"?
From Middle French police, from Latin polītīa (“state, government”), from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía). Doublet of policy, polis (“police”), and polity. 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 "police", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

future#466either#464rather#478reason#479

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).

short8 variantsmillion8 variantslight8 variantswatch8 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list