section
/ˈsɛkʃən/
"section" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“section” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,097 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,097
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A cutting; a part cut out from the rest of something.
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 | section |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɛkʃən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,097 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “section” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for section is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɛkʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,097 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 23 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for section, with forms such as "esction", "scetion", and "secction". 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, "seton", "sector", "sexton", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English seccioun, from Old French section, from Latin sectiō (“cutting, cutting off, excision, amputation of diseased parts of the body, etc.”), from sectus, past participle of secāre (“to cut”). More at saw. The correct English form is section, spelled S-E-C-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1A cutting; a part cut out from the rest of something.
- 2A part, piece, subdivision of anything.
- 3A part, piece, subdivision of anything.
- 4A part of a document, especially a major part; often notated with §.
- 5An act or instance of cutting.
- 6A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
- 7A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
- 8A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
- 9A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
- 10A cross-section (image that shows an object as if cut along a plane).
- 11An incision or the act of making an incision.
- 12An incision or the act of making an incision.
- 13thin section, a thin slice of material prepared as a specimen for research.
- 14A taxonomic rank below the genus (and subgenus if present), but above the species.
- 15An informal taxonomic rank below the order ranks and above the family ranks.
- 16A group of 10-15 soldiers led by a non-commissioned officer and forming part of a platoon.
- 17A piece of residential land; a plot.
- 18Synonym of square mile, a unit of land area, especially in the contexts of Canadian surveys and American land grants and legal property descriptions.
- 19The symbol §, denoting a section of a document.
- 20A sequence of rock layers.
- 21Archeological section; vertical plane and cross-section of the ground to view its profile and stratigraphy; part of an archeological sequence.
- 22Angle section, L-section, angle iron, steel angle, slotted angle.
- 23A class in a school; a group of students in a regularly scheduled meeting with a teacher in a certain school year or semester or school quarter year.
Etymology
From Middle English seccioun, from Old French section, from Latin sectiō (“cutting, cutting off, excision, amputation of diseased parts of the body, etc.”), from sectus, past participle of secāre (“to cut”). More at saw.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: esction,scetion,secction,seciton,secsion,sectino,sectionn,sectoin,secttion,setcion,ssection
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of section - 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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Using “section”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-E-C-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɛkʃən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “seton” - see the side-by-side comparison. section vs seton
- 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.