selfish
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "selfish", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "selfish" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "selfish" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
selfish is anEnglishadj. It means: Holding one's own self-interest as the standard for decision making. Pronounced /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/. It ranks #6,009 in English word frequency. Often confused with shellfish and selfishly.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | selfish |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #6,009 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for selfish is 7 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,009 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for selfish, with forms such as "eslfish", "seflish", and "selffish". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "shellfish", "selfishly", "selfie", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From self + -ish. Compare Danish selvisk (“selfish”), Swedish självisk (“selfish”). Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is selfish, spelled S-E-L-F-I-S-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Holding one's own self-interest as the standard for decision making.
- 2Having excessive or exclusive regard and concern for one's own well-being, profit or pleasure, with little or no consideration for others.
- 3Of video game characters: relying on their own actions and capabilities to be effective in the game, rather than on other characters.
- 4Related to or equivalent to a selfish gene; best understood as existing to preserve and replicate itself in competition with other entities at the same level of existence, rather than at the level of the individual or population containing it.
Etymology
From self + -ish. Compare Danish selvisk (“selfish”), Swedish självisk (“selfish”).
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eslfish,seflish,selffish,selfihs,selfishh,selfissh,selfsih,selifsh,sellfish,slefish,sselfish
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for selfish
Misspelling Variants of "selfish"
Frequency rank: #6,009 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: