shank
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shank", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "shank" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "shank" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shank is aEnglishnoun. It means: The part of the leg between the knee and the ankle. Pronounced /ˈʃæŋk/. Often confused with sink and shaw.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shank |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈʃæŋk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #26,596 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shank is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʃæŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,596 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 19 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for shank, with forms such as "hsank", "sahnk", and "shakn". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "sink", "shaw", "span", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English schanke, from Old English sċanca (“leg”), from Proto-West Germanic *skankō, from Proto-Germanic *skankô (compare West Frisian skonk, Dutch schenkel, Low German Schanke, German Schenkel (“shank, leg”), Danish skank, Norwegian sk… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is shank, spelled S-H-A-N-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The part of the leg between the knee and the ankle.
- 2Meat from that part of an animal.
- 3A redshank or greenshank, various species of Old World wading birds in the genus Tringa having distinctly colored legs.
- 4A straight, narrow part of an object, such as a key or an anchor; shaft; stem.
- 5The handle of a pair of shears, connecting the ride to the neck.
- 6The center part of a fishhook between the eye and the hook, the 'hook' being the curved part that bends toward the point.
- 7A protruding part of an object, by which it is or can be attached.
- 8The metal part on a curb bit that falls below the mouthpiece, which length controls the severity of the leverage action of the bit, and to which the reins of the bridle are attached.
- 9A poorly played golf shot in which the ball is struck by the part of the club head that connects to the shaft.
- 10The part of the sole beneath the instep connecting the broader front part with the heel.
- 11A metal strip strengthening the waists of shoes. (Also shankpiece.)
- 12An improvised stabbing weapon, originally in prison, possibly from the strips of metal in shoes.
- 13A loop forming an eye to a button.
- 14The space between two channels of the Doric triglyph.
- 15A large ladle for molten metal, fitted with long bars for handling it.
- 16The body of a type; between the shoulder and the foot.
- 17Flat-nosed pliers, used by opticians for nipping off the edges of pieces of glass to make them round.
- 18The end or remainder, particularly of a period of time.
- 19The main part or beginning of a period of time.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English schanke, from Old English sċanca (“leg”), from Proto-West Germanic *skankō, from Proto-Germanic *skankô (compare West Frisian skonk, Dutch schenkel, Low German Schanke, German Schenkel (“shank, leg”), Danish skank, Norwegian skank, Swedish skänkel), from *skankaz (compare Old Norse skakkr (“wry, crooked”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (compare Middle Irish scingim (“I spring”), Ancient Greek σκάζω (skázō, “to limp”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsank,sahnk,shakn,shankk,shannk,shhank,shnak,sshank
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shank
Misspelling Variants of "shank"
Frequency rank: #26,596 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: