sh
"sh" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sh” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,856 in English word frequency and used as an interjection.
- #8,856
- frequency rank, English
- 2
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Alternative spelling of shh.
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 | sh |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #8,856 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sh” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sh is 2 letters long, classified as an interjection. Corpus data places it at rank #8,856 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Alternative spelling of shh.".
Zero misspellings are on record for sh in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "SI", "SS", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is sh, spelled S-H.
Definition
- 1Alternative spelling of shh.
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
How do you spell "sh"?
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Using “sh”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “so” - see the side-by-side comparison. sh vs so
- 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.