shale
/ʃeɪl/
"shale" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shale” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #11,460. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #11,460
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A shell, scale or husk; a cod or pod.
Corpus desk
Index EN-shale · shale · English
shale · rank #11,460 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #11,460
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH sewing
Nearest frequency peer: sewing (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “shale”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- scrub
scrub
88,544 corpus weight
- separating
separating
88,543 corpus weight
- sewing
sewing
88,542 corpus weight
- shale
shale
88,541 corpus weight
- shin
shin
88,540 corpus weight
- simplified
simplified
88,538 corpus weight
What this shows “shale” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | shale |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃeɪl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #11,460 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “shale”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around shale (IPA /ʃeɪl/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #11,460 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for shale, with forms such as "hsale", "sahle", and "shael". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "she", "SLE", "sole", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English schale (“shell, husk; scale”), from Old English sċealu (“shell, husk, pod”), from Proto-West Germanic *skalu, from Proto-Germanic *skalō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”), from *(s)kel- (“to split, cleave”). See also … The correct English form is shale, spelled S-H-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1A shell, scale or husk; a cod or pod.
- 2A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how shale appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
the green shales of a bean
Mr. Lyell next visited the red and green shales of Cabotville, north of Springfield in Massachusetts, where some of the best Ornithichnites have been procured, chiefly in the green shale.
Etymology
From Middle English schale (“shell, husk; scale”), from Old English sċealu (“shell, husk, pod”), from Proto-West Germanic *skalu, from Proto-Germanic *skalō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”), from *(s)kel- (“to split, cleave”). See also West Frisian skaal (“dish”), Dutch schaal (“shell”), schalie (“shale”), German Schale (“husk, pod”); also Lithuanian skalà (“splinter”), Old Church Slavonic скала (skala, “rock, stone”), Polish skała (“rock”), Albanian halë (“fish bone, splinter”), Sanskrit कल (kalá, “small part”); also Hittite [script needed] (iškalla, “to tear apart, slit open”), Lithuanian skélti (“to split”), Ancient Greek σκάλλω (skállō, “to hoe, harrow”). Doublet of scale. See also shell.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- hsale
- sahle
- shael
- shalle
- shhale
- shlae
- sshale
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shale - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "shale", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).