psalm
/sɑːm/
"psalm" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“psalm” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,789 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,789
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God.
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 | psalm |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɑːm/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #13,789 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “psalm” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for psalm is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɑːm/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,789 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 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 psalm, with forms such as "paslm", "ppsalm", and "psallm". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 15 confusable-pair relationships, "PSL", "Psalms", "PAL", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English salm or psalme, from Old English psealm, later reinforced from Old French psalme (modern French psaume), both from Latin psalmus, from Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, “the sound emanating from twitching or twanging perhaps with the hands … The correct English form is psalm, spelled P-S-A-L-M.
Definition
- 1A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God.
- 2One of the hymns by David and others, collected into one book of the Old Testament, or a modern metrical version of such a hymn for public worship.
Etymology
From Middle English salm or psalme, from Old English psealm, later reinforced from Old French psalme (modern French psaume), both from Latin psalmus, from Ancient Greek ψαλμός (psalmós, “the sound emanating from twitching or twanging perhaps with the hands or fingers, mostly of musical strings”) (from ψάλλω (psállō, “to make a sound by striking, touching, plucking, rubbing, twanging, or vibrating”)), but later in New Testament times the meaning of ψαλμός (psalmós) evolved from its Classical meaning of "a tune played to the harp" to a more general tune that could be played with any instrument; even a song sung with or without musical accompaniment. By the Byzantine Period, it lost all of its instrumental nuances.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: paslm,ppsalm,psallm,psalmm,psaml,pslam,pssalm,spalm
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of psalm - 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 “psalm”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-S-A-L-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɑːm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “PSL” - see the side-by-side comparison. psalm vs PSL
- 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.