police
/pəˈliːs/
"police" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“police” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #471 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #471
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 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.
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 | police |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pəˈliːs/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #471 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “police” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for police is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pəˈliːs/. Corpus data places it at rank #471 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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
- 1A 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.
- 2A 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.
- 3A 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.
- 4A 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.
- 5The staff of such a department or agency, particularly its officers; (regional, chiefly US, Caribbean, Jamaica, Scotland, countable) an individual police officer.
- 6People who try to enforce norms or standards as if granted authority similar to the police.
- 7Cleanup of a military facility, as a formal duty.
- 8Synonym of administration, the regulation of a community or society.
- 9Alternative form of policy.
- 10Alternative form of polity, civilization, a regulated community.
Etymology
From Middle French police, from Latin polītīa (“state, government”), from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía). Doublet of policy, polis (“police”), and polity.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
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.
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 “police”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-O-L-I-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pəˈliːs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “price” - see the side-by-side comparison. police vs price
- 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.