pulse
/pʌls/
"pulse" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pulse” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #6,507. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #6,507
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A normally regular beat felt when arteries near the skin (for example, at the neck or wrist) are depressed, caused by the heart pumping blood through them; the qualitative nature of this beat.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pulse · pulse · English
pulse · rank #6,507 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,507
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH proves
Nearest frequency peer: proves (-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 “pulse”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- pronounced
pronounced
93,497 corpus weight
- prosecution
prosecution
93,496 corpus weight
- proves
proves
93,495 corpus weight
- pulse
pulse
93,494 corpus weight
- purchasing
purchasing
93,493 corpus weight
- qualities
qualities
93,492 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “pulse” 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 | pulse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pʌls/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,507 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pulse” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around pulse (IPA /pʌls/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #6,507 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 11 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for pulse, with forms such as "pluse", "ppulse", and "pules". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pus", "push", "pure", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Middle English pulse, Middle English pous, pouse (“regular beat of arteries, pulse; heartbeat; place on the body where a pulse is detectable; beat (of a musical instrument); energy, vitality”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman puls, pous, pus, … The correct English form is pulse, spelled P-U-L-S-E.
Definition
- 1A normally regular beat felt when arteries near the skin (for example, at the neck or wrist) are depressed, caused by the heart pumping blood through them; the qualitative nature of this beat.
- 2The rate of this beat as an indication of a person's health.
- 3A beat or throb; also, a repeated sequence of such beats or throbs.
- 4The focus of energy or vigour of an activity, place, or thing; also, the feeling of bustle, busyness, or energy in a place; the heartbeat.
- 5An (increased) amount of a substance (such as a drug or an isotopic label) given over a short time.
- 6A setting on a food processor which causes it to work in a series of short bursts rather than continuously, in order to break up ingredients without liquidizing them; also, a use of this setting.
- 7The beat or tactus of a piece of music or verse; also, a repeated sequence of such beats.
- 8A brief burst of electromagnetic energy, such as light, radio waves, etc.
- 9Synonym of autosoliton (“a stable solitary localized structure that arises in nonlinear spatially extended dissipative systems due to mechanisms of self-organization”).
- 10A brief increase in the strength of an electrical signal; an impulse.
- 11A timed, coordinated connection, when multiple public transportation vehicles are at a hub at the same time so that passengers can flexibly connect between them.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pulse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Her pulse was thready and weak.
Her pulse was 110 at 8 a.m.
Etymology
From Late Middle English pulse, Middle English pous, pouse (“regular beat of arteries, pulse; heartbeat; place on the body where a pulse is detectable; beat (of a musical instrument); energy, vitality”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman puls, pous, pus, and Middle French pouls, poulz, pous [and other forms], Old French pous, pulz (“regular beat of arteries; place on the body where a pulse is detectable”) (modern French pouls), and from their etymon Latin pulsus (“beat, impulse, pulse, stroke; regular beat of arteries or the heart”), from pellō (“to drive, impel, propel, push; to banish, eject, expel; to set in motion; to strike”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to beat, strike; to drive; to push, thrust”)) + -sus (a variant of -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- pluse
- ppulse
- pules
- pullse
- pulsse
- pusle
- uplse
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pulse - 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 "pulse", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "pulse". Here's where to go from here.
- "pulse" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "pus". View pair
- 7 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #6,507 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.