salad
/ˈsæl.əd/
"salad" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“salad” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,624 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,624
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A food made primarily of a mixture of raw or cold ingredients, typically vegetables, usually served with a dressing such as vinegar or mayonnaise.
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 | salad |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsæl.əd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,624 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “salad” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for salad is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsæl.əd/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,624 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for salad, with forms such as "aslad", "saald", and "saladd". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "SLA", "sale", "sold", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *séh₂ls From Middle English salade, from Old French salade, borrowed from Northern Italian salada, salata (compare insalata), from Vulgar Latin *salāta, from *salāre, from Latin saliō, from sal (“salt”). Vegetables were seasoned with brine or salt… The correct English form is salad, spelled S-A-L-A-D.
Definition
- 1A food made primarily of a mixture of raw or cold ingredients, typically vegetables, usually served with a dressing such as vinegar or mayonnaise.
- 2A food made primarily of a mixture of raw or cold ingredients, typically vegetables, usually served with a dressing such as vinegar or mayonnaise.
- 3A raw vegetable of the kind used in salads.
- 4Any varied blend or mixture.
- 5Lettuce.
Etymology
PIE word *séh₂ls From Middle English salade, from Old French salade, borrowed from Northern Italian salada, salata (compare insalata), from Vulgar Latin *salāta, from *salāre, from Latin saliō, from sal (“salt”). Vegetables were seasoned with brine or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings during Roman times.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aslad,saald,saladd,salda,sallad,slaad,ssalad
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of salad - 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “salad”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-A-L-A-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsæl.əd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “SLA” - see the side-by-side comparison. salad vs SLA
- 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.