polished
/ˈpɑlɪʃt/
"polished" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“polished” has 12 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #10,256. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #10,256
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Made smooth or shiny by polishing.
Corpus desk
Index EN-polished · polished · English
polished · rank #10,256 · 12 variants · 5 confusables
- FREQ-MID #10,256
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 5 pairs
- VAR-MID 12 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH ping
Nearest frequency peer: ping (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “polished”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- photographic
photographic
89,748 corpus weight
- pinch
pinch
89,747 corpus weight
- ping
ping
89,746 corpus weight
- polished
polished
89,745 corpus weight
- pots
pots
89,744 corpus weight
- predictable
predictable
89,743 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “polished” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | polished |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈpɑlɪʃt/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #10,256 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “polished” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 12 spelling variants around polished (IPA /ˈpɑlɪʃt/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #10,256 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for polished, with forms such as "oplished", "ploished", and "poilshed". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "punished", "published", "Polish", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is polished, spelled P-O-L-I-S-H-E-D.
Definition
- 1Made smooth or shiny by polishing.
- 2Refined, elegant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how polished appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
polished shoes
But despite its plague of tunnels, the run-in on this route is of unusual interest to the locomotive enthusiast: besides the hordes of self-important saddle-tanks shunting in the extensive yards, there was at one time the chance of seeing those slender little North London engines, with their large outside cylinders and no visible storage place for coal, a…
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- oplished
- ploished
- poilshed
- polihsed
- polisehd
- polishde
- polishedd
- polishhed
- polisshed
- pollished
- polsihed
- ppolished
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of polished - 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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "polished", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (12 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "polished". Here's where to go from here.
- "polished" maps to 5 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "punished". View pair
- 12 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #10,256 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "P" letter cohort. P–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.