scold
/skəʊld/
"scold" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scold” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #36,752 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #36,752
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person who habitually scolds, in particular a troublesome and angry woman.
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 | scold |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skəʊld/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #36,752 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “scold” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for scold is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skəʊld/. Corpus data places it at rank #36,752 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A person who habitually scolds, in particular a troublesome and angry woman.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for scold, with forms such as "csold", "sccold", and "sclod". 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, "sol", "sod", "sold", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is from Middle English scold(e), skald(e), first attested in the 12th or 13th century (as scold, scolde, skolde, skald). The verb is from Middle English scolden, first attested in the late 1300s. Most dictionaries derive the verb from the noun and … The correct English form is scold, spelled S-C-O-L-D.
Definition
- 1A person who habitually scolds, in particular a troublesome and angry woman.
Etymology
The noun is from Middle English scold(e), skald(e), first attested in the 12th or 13th century (as scold, scolde, skolde, skald). The verb is from Middle English scolden, first attested in the late 1300s. Most dictionaries derive the verb from the noun and say the noun is probably from Old Norse skald (“poet”) (cognate with Icelandic skáld (“poet, scop”)), as skalds sometimes wrote insulting poems, though another view is that the Norse and English words are cognate to each other and to Old High German skeltan (whence Modern German schelten (“to scold, chide”)), Old Dutch skeldan (whence Modern Dutch schelden (“to scold, berate”)), all inherited from Proto-Germanic *skeldaną (“scold”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: csold,sccold,sclod,scodl,scoldd,scolld,socld,sscold
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of scold - 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 “scold”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-C-O-L-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skəʊld/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sol” - see the side-by-side comparison. scold vs sol
- 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.