safety
/ˈseɪfti/
"safety" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“safety” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,147 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,147
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The condition or feeling of being safe; security; certainty.
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 | safety |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈseɪfti/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,147 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “safety” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for safety is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈseɪfti/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,147 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for safety, with forms such as "asfety", "saefty", and "safetty". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "salty", "sanity", "surety", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English savete, from Old French sauveté, from earlier salvetet, from Medieval Latin salvitās, salvitātem, from Latin salvus. The correct English form is safety, spelled S-A-F-E-T-Y.
Definition
- 1The condition or feeling of being safe; security; certainty.
- 2A safety lock or safety catch: a mechanism on a weapon or dangerous equipment designed to prevent accidental firing or operation.
- 3Preservation from escape; close custody.
- 4An instance of a player being sacked or tackled in the end zone, or stepping out of the end zone and off the field, resulting in two points to the opposite team.
- 5Any of the defensive players who are in position furthest from the line of scrimmage and whose responsibility is to defend against passes as well as to be the tacklers of last resort.
- 6A safety squeeze.
- 7A safety shot or sequence of such shots.
- 8A safety bicycle.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English savete, from Old French sauveté, from earlier salvetet, from Medieval Latin salvitās, salvitātem, from Latin salvus.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asfety,saefty,safetty,safetyy,safeyt,saffety,saftey,sfaety,ssafety
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of safety - 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 “safety”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-A-F-E-T-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈseɪfti/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “salty” - see the side-by-side comparison. safety vs salty
- 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.