severe
/sɪˈvɪə/
"severe" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“severe” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #2,701. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #2,701
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - Very bad or intense.
Corpus desk
Index EN-severe · severe · English
severe · rank #2,701 · 8 variants · 14 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #2,701
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 14 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH rooms
Nearest frequency peer: rooms (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “severe”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- q
q
97,303 corpus weight
- revolution
revolution
97,302 corpus weight
- rooms
rooms
97,301 corpus weight
- severe
severe
97,300 corpus weight
- sleeping
sleeping
97,299 corpus weight
- suppose
suppose
97,298 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “severe” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | severe |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /sɪˈvɪə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,701 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “severe” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around severe (IPA /sɪˈvɪə/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #2,701 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for severe, with forms such as "esvere", "seevre", and "seveer". 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 14 confusable-pair relationships, "sewer", "sphere", "Severn", 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 French, from Latin severus (“severe, serious, grave in demeanor”). The correct English form is severe, spelled S-E-V-E-R-E.
Definition
- 1Very bad or intense.
- 2Strict or harsh.
- 3Sober, plain in appearance, austere.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how severe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In the severer cases of hookworm the patient sometimes has an appetite for soil, paper, hair, clay, chalk, starch, and other unpalatables.
Parkinsonism, at its severest, presents itself as an akinetic amimia (as opposed to certain cortical disorders which are amimic akinesias).
Etymology
From Middle French, from Latin severus (“severe, serious, grave in demeanor”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- esvere
- seevre
- seveer
- severre
- sevree
- sevvere
- ssevere
- sveere
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of severe - 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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "severe", 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 (8 here; floor ≥5).
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.