selfless
"selfless" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“selfless” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #19,693 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #19,693
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Having, exhibiting or motivated by no concern for oneself but for others; unselfish.
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 | selfless |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #19,693 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “selfless” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for selfless is 8 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #19,693 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Having, exhibiting or motivated by no concern for oneself but for others; unselfish.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for selfless, with forms such as "eslfless", "seflless", and "selfelss". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "sellers", "seamless", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From self + -less. The correct English form is selfless, spelled S-E-L-F-L-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1Having, exhibiting or motivated by no concern for oneself but for others; unselfish.
Etymology
From self + -less.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eslfless,seflless,selfelss,selffless,selfles,selflless,selflses,sellfess,sellfless,slefless,sselfless
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of selfless - 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 “selfless”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-E-L-F-L-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “sellers” - see the side-by-side comparison. selfless vs sellers
- 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.