shah
/ʃɑː/
"shah" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shah” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #9,535 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #9,535
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A king of Persia or Iran.
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 | shah |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃɑː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #9,535 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shah” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shah is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɑː/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,535 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for shah, with forms such as "hsah", "sahh", and "shahh". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "she", "shy", "spa", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Persian شاه (šâh), from Middle Persian 𐭬𐭫𐭪𐭠 (šāh), from Old Persian 𐏋 (XŠ /xšāyaθiya/). Doublet of check. More at chess. The correct English form is shah, spelled S-H-A-H.
Definition
- 1A king of Persia or Iran.
- 2A supreme ruler in some West Asian, Central Asian or South Asian nations.
Etymology
From Persian شاه (šâh), from Middle Persian 𐭬𐭫𐭪𐭠 (šāh), from Old Persian 𐏋 (XŠ /xšāyaθiya/). Doublet of check. More at chess.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsah,sahh,shahh,shha,shhah,sshah
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shah - 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 “shah”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-A-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʃɑː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “she” - see the side-by-side comparison. shah vs she
- 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.