scribe
/skɹaɪb/
"scribe" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scribe” has 9 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #26,239. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #26,239
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Someone who writes; a draughtsperson; a writer for another; especially, an official or public writer; an amanuensis, secretary, notary, or copyist.
Corpus desk
Index EN-scribe · scribe · English
scribe · rank #26,239 · 9 variants · 15 confusables
- FREQ-MID #26,239
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 15 pairs
- VAR-MID 9 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH sentry
Nearest frequency peer: sentry (+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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “scribe”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- sacrificial
sacrificial
73,766 corpus weight
- Schulz
Schulz
73,765 corpus weight
- scorching
scorching
73,764 corpus weight
- scribe
scribe
73,762 corpus weight
- sentry
sentry
73,761 corpus weight
- sexton
sexton
73,759 corpus weight
What this shows “scribe” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | scribe |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skɹaɪb/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #26,239 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “scribe”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 9 spelling variants around scribe (IPA /skɹaɪb/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #26,239 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for scribe, with forms such as "csribe", "sccribe", and "scirbe". 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 15 confusable-pair relationships, "scrub", "serie", "scrip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English scribe, from Old French scribe (“scribe”), from Late Latin usage of scrība (“secretary”) (used in the Vulgate Bible translation to render Ancient Greek γραμματεύς (grammateús, “scribe, secretary”), which had been used in its turn to rend… The correct English form is scribe, spelled S-C-R-I-B-E.
Definition
- 1Someone who writes; a draughtsperson; a writer for another; especially, an official or public writer; an amanuensis, secretary, notary, or copyist.
- 2Someone who writes; a draughtsperson; a writer for another; especially, an official or public writer; an amanuensis, secretary, notary, or copyist.
- 3A journalist.
- 4A writer and doctor of the law; one skilled in the law and traditions; one who read and explained the law to the people.
- 5A very sharp, steel drawing implement used in engraving and etching, a scriber.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how scribe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[T]he pleasure of writing on wax with a stylus is exemplified by the fine, flowing hand of a Roman scribe who made out the birth certificate of Herennia Gemella, born March 128 AD.
The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,[…]. Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read.
Etymology
From Middle English scribe, from Old French scribe (“scribe”), from Late Latin usage of scrība (“secretary”) (used in the Vulgate Bible translation to render Ancient Greek γραμματεύς (grammateús, “scribe, secretary”), which had been used in its turn to render the Hebrew סופר (“writer, scholar”)) from scrībere (“to write, draw, draw up, draft (a paper), enlist, enroll, levy; orig. to scratch”), probably akin to scrobs (“a ditch, trench, grave”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- csribe
- sccribe
- scirbe
- scrbie
- scribbe
- scrieb
- scrribe
- srcibe
- sscribe
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of scribe - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "scribe", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).