sepsis
/ˈsɛpsɪs/
"sepsis" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sepsis” has 9 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #28,714. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #28,714
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A serious medical condition in which the whole body is inflamed, causing injury to its own tissues and organs as a response to infection.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sepsis · sepsis · English
sepsis · rank #28,714 · 9 variants · 5 confusables
- FREQ-MID #28,714
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 5 pairs
- VAR-MID 9 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH seer
Nearest frequency peer: seer (-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 “sepsis”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- schism
schism
71,290 corpus weight
- scrubbed
scrubbed
71,289 corpus weight
- seer
seer
71,288 corpus weight
- sepsis
sepsis
71,287 corpus weight
- Seward
Seward
71,286 corpus weight
- sharpening
sharpening
71,285 corpus weight
What this shows “sepsis” 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 | sepsis |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɛpsɪs/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #28,714 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “sepsis”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 9 spelling variants around sepsis (IPA /ˈsɛpsɪs/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #28,714 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Dominant gloss: "A serious medical condition in which the whole body is inflamed, causing injury to its own tissues and organs as a response to infection.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for sepsis, with forms such as "espsis", "sepiss", and "seppsis". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "septic", "stasis", "semis", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: coined by Hippocrates From Ancient Greek σῆψις (sêpsis, “putrefaction”), from σήπειν (sḗpein, “to make rotten”), from σήψ (sḗps, “a kind of lizard; also a kind of serpent whose bite was alleged to cause putrefaction”). The correct English form is sepsis, spelled S-E-P-S-I-S.
Definition
- 1A serious medical condition in which the whole body is inflamed, causing injury to its own tissues and organs as a response to infection.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how sepsis appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Imagine the sepsis of helpless loathing [Jimmy Connors] must have inspired in his opponents during his "great runs" at the US Open.
Etymology
coined by Hippocrates From Ancient Greek σῆψις (sêpsis, “putrefaction”), from σήπειν (sḗpein, “to make rotten”), from σήψ (sḗps, “a kind of lizard; also a kind of serpent whose bite was alleged to cause putrefaction”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- espsis
- sepiss
- seppsis
- sepsiss
- sepssi
- sepssis
- sespis
- spesis
- ssepsis
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sepsis - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sepsis", 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).