severe
/sɪˈvɪə/
"severe" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“severe” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,701 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #2,701
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Very bad or intense.
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
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for severe is 6 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɪˈvɪə/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,701 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “severe”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-E-V-E-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɪˈvɪə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sewer” - see the side-by-side comparison. severe vs sewer
- 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.