sailor
/ˈseɪ.lɚ/
"sailor" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sailor” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #9,953 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #9,953
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person who sails; one whose occupation is sailing or navigating ships or other waterborne craft.
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 | sailor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈseɪ.lɚ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #9,953 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sailor” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sailor is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈseɪ.lɚ/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,953 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 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 sailor, with forms such as "asilor", "saillor", and "sailorr". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 12 confusable-pair relationships, "silo", "salon", "sails", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Alteration of earlier sailer, from Middle English sailer, sayler, saylere, equivalent to sail + -or. Cognate with German Segler (“sailor”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English marinel, marynell (“sailor”) borrowed from Old French marinel (“sailor”). See mari… The correct English form is sailor, spelled S-A-I-L-O-R.
Definition
- 1A person who sails; one whose occupation is sailing or navigating ships or other waterborne craft.
- 2A person who sails; one whose occupation is sailing or navigating ships or other waterborne craft.
- 3A person who sails; one whose occupation is sailing or navigating ships or other waterborne craft.
- 4Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genera Neptis, Pseudoneptis and Phaedyma, having white markings on a dark base and commonly flying by gliding.
- 5A stiff straw hat with a flat, circular brim and a low, flat crown.
- 6A brick, for example in a course of brickwork, that is laid vertically on its shortest end (smallest face), with its widest face facing the outside of the wall.
Etymology
Alteration of earlier sailer, from Middle English sailer, sayler, saylere, equivalent to sail + -or. Cognate with German Segler (“sailor”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English marinel, marynell (“sailor”) borrowed from Old French marinel (“sailor”). See mariner.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asilor,saillor,sailorr,sailro,saiolr,salior,sialor,ssailor
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sailor - 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 “sailor”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-A-I-L-O-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈseɪ.lɚ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “silo” - see the side-by-side comparison. sailor vs silo
- 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.