service
/ˈsɜː.vɪs/
"service" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“service” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #311 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #311
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An act of being of assistance to someone.
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 | service |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɜː.vɪs/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #311 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “service” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for service is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɜː.vɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #311 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 17 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for service, with forms such as "esrvice", "serivce", and "serrvice". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "serving", "survive", "services", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English servise, from Old English serfis, from Old French servise (French service), from the verb servir, from Latin servitium (compare Portuguese serviço, Italian servizio, Norman sèrvice, Spanish servicio), from servus (“servant; serf; slave”)… The correct English form is service, spelled S-E-R-V-I-C-E.
Definition
- 1An act of being of assistance to someone.
- 2The state of being subordinate to or employed by an individual or group.
- 3Work as a member of the military.
- 4The practice of providing assistance as economic activity.
- 5Synonym of utility (“commodity provided on a continuous basis by a physical infrastructure network, such as electricity, water supply or sewerage”).
- 6A department in a company, organization, or institution.
- 7A function that is provided by one program or machine for another.
- 8The military.
- 9A set of dishes or utensils.
- 10The act of initially starting, or serving, the ball in play in tennis, volleyball, and other games.
- 11A religious rite or ritual.
- 12The serving, or delivery, of a summons or writ.
- 13A taxi shared among unrelated passengers, each of whom pays part of the fare; often, it has a fixed route between cities.
- 14A musical composition for use in churches.
- 15Profession of respect; acknowledgment of duty owed.
- 16The materials used for serving a rope, etc., such as spun yarn and small lines.
- 17Access to resources such as hotel rooms and Web-based videos without transfer of the resources' ownership.
Etymology
From Middle English servise, from Old English serfis, from Old French servise (French service), from the verb servir, from Latin servitium (compare Portuguese serviço, Italian servizio, Norman sèrvice, Spanish servicio), from servus (“servant; serf; slave”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser-wo-s (“guardian”), possibly from *ser- (“watch over, protect”). Displaced native Old English þeġnung.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: esrvice,serivce,serrvice,servcie,servicce,serviec,servvice,sevrice,srevice,sservice
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of service - 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 “service”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-E-R-V-I-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɜː.vɪs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “serving” - see the side-by-side comparison. service vs serving
- 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.