sag
/sæɡ/
"sag" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sag” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #21,052) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #21,052
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The state of sinking or bending; a droop.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sag · sag · English
sag · rank #21,052 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #21,052
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH rowling
Nearest frequency peer: rowling (-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 “sag”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- reptile
reptile
78,955 corpus weight
- rowling
rowling
78,950 corpus weight
- sag
sag
78,949 corpus weight
- sauna
sauna
78,947 corpus weight
- scaring
scaring
78,946 corpus weight
- scrum
scrum
78,944 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “sag” 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 | sag |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sæɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #21,052 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sag” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for sag is neighbouring look-alikes ("so", "se", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /sæɡ/. Frequency #21,052 among 6,566 “S” headwords. 4 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sag, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "se", "SC", 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 saggen, probably of North Germanic/Scandinavian/Old Norse origin, akin to Old Norse sokkva (“to sink”), from a denasalized derivative of Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną (“to sink”). Compare Norwegian Nynorsk sagga (“move slowly”)); probabl… The correct English form is sag, spelled S-A-G.
Definition
- 1The state of sinking or bending; a droop.
- 2The difference in elevation of a wire, cable, chain or rope suspended between two consecutive points.
- 3The difference in height or depth between the vertex and the rim of a curved surface, specifically used for optical elements such as a mirror or lens.
- 4A place where the surface (of a seat, the earth, etc) sinks or droops, like a depression or a dip in a ridge.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sag appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
a mass of igneous rock […] shown as a semicircular area of shonkinite exposed in the west wall of the sag. From the valley below, it appears as a dark cliff, perhaps 100 feet in height and a few hundred yards long.
Gunsight Peak north of the sag marks the southern end of the Malad Range that extends into Idaho. Complexly faulted Cambrian and Ordovician shelf sedimentary rocks are present[…]
Etymology
From late Middle English saggen, probably of North Germanic/Scandinavian/Old Norse origin, akin to Old Norse sokkva (“to sink”), from a denasalized derivative of Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną (“to sink”). Compare Norwegian Nynorsk sagga (“move slowly”)); probably akin to Danish and Norwegian sakke, Swedish sacka, Icelandic sakka. Compare also Dutch zakken and German sacken (from Low German).
This word in other languages
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sag", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "sag". Here's where to go from here.
- "sag" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "so". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #21,052 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–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.