president
/ˈpɹɛz.ɪ.dənt/
"president" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“president” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #340 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #340
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The head of state of a republic.
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 | president |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpɹɛz.ɪ.dənt/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #340 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “president” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for president is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɹɛz.ɪ.dənt/. Corpus data places it at rank #340 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for president, with forms such as "persident", "ppresident", and "preisdent". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "provident", "present", "preside", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Old French president, from Latin praesidēns (“presiding over; president, leader”) (accusative: praesidentem). The Latin word is the substantivized present active participle of the verb praesideō (“preside over”). The verb is composed from prae (“before… The correct English form is president, spelled P-R-E-S-I-D-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1The head of state of a republic.
- 2In presidential republics, the head of government and head of state.
- 3Primary leader of a corporation. Not to be confused with CEO, which is a related but separate position that is sometimes held by a different person.
- 4A person presiding over a meeting; a chair, presiding officer, presider.
- 5Obsolete form of precedent.
Etymology
From Old French president, from Latin praesidēns (“presiding over; president, leader”) (accusative: praesidentem). The Latin word is the substantivized present active participle of the verb praesideō (“preside over”). The verb is composed from prae (“before”) and sedeō (“sit”). The original meaning of the verb is 'to sit before' in the sense of presiding at a meeting. A secondary meaning of the verb is 'to command, to govern'. So praesidēns means 'the presiding one on a meeting' or 'governor, commander'.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: persident,ppresident,preisdent,presdient,presiddent,presidennt,presidentt,presidetn,presidnet,presiednt,pressident,prresident,prseident,rpesident
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of president - 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 “president”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-R-E-S-I-D-E-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpɹɛz.ɪ.dənt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “provident” - see the side-by-side comparison. president vs provident
- 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.