rose
/ɹəʊz/
"rose" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“rose” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,614 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,614
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A shrub of the genus Rosa, with red, pink, white or yellow flowers.
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 | rose |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɹəʊz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,614 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “rose” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rose is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹəʊz/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,614 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for rose, with forms such as "orse", "roes", and "rosse". 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, "RS", "row", "Roy", 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 rose, roose, from Old English rōse, but with its vowel influenced by Old French rose, both from Latin rosa. cognates and more remote and uncertain etymology The Latin is of uncertain origin, but likely via Oscan from Ancient Greek ῥόδον … The correct English form is rose, spelled R-O-S-E.
Definition
- 1A shrub of the genus Rosa, with red, pink, white or yellow flowers.
- 2A flower of the rose plant.
- 3A plant or species in the rose family. (Rosaceae)
- 4Something resembling a rose flower, such as a compass rose.
- 5A bouquet of circles.
- 6The rose flower, usually depicted with five petals, five barbs, and a circular seed.
- 7A purplish-red or pink color, the color of some rose flowers.
- 8A round nozzle for a sprinkling can or hose.
- 9The usually circular base of a light socket in the ceiling, from which the fitting or chandelier is suspended.
- 10Any of various large, red-bodied, papilionid butterflies of the genus Pachliopta.
- 11Any of various flower-like polar graphs of sinusoids or their squares.
- 12A graph with only one vertex.
- 13A fairy chess piece that can make knight moves in a circular path.
- 14A type of sex toy shaped like a rose.
Etymology
From Middle English rose, roose, from Old English rōse, but with its vowel influenced by Old French rose, both from Latin rosa. cognates and more remote and uncertain etymology The Latin is of uncertain origin, but likely via Oscan from Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon, “rose”) (Aeolic ϝρόδον (wródon)), from Old Persian *vr̥dah (“flower”) (compare Avestan 𐬬𐬀𐬭𐬆𐬜𐬀- (var^əδa-), Sogdian [script needed] (ward), Parthian wâr, late Middle Persian [Term?] (gwl /gul/), Persian گل (gol, “rose, flower”), and Middle Iranian borrowings including Old Armenian վարդ (vard, “rose”), Aramaic וַרְדָּא (wardā) / ܘܪܕܐ (wardā), Arabic وَرْدَة (warda), Hebrew וֶרֶד (wéreḏ)), from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥dʰos (“sweetbriar”) (compare Old English word (“thornbush”), Latin rubus (“bramble”), Albanian hurdhe (“ivy”)). Possibly ultimately a derivation from a verb for "to grow" only attested in Indo-Iranian (*Hwardʰ-, compare Sanskrit वर्धति (vardhati), with relatives in Avestan).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: orse,roes,rosse,rrose,rsoe
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of rose - 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 “rose”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-O-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɹəʊz/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “RS” - see the side-by-side comparison. rose vs RS
- 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.