share
/ʃɛə/
"share" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“share” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #642 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #642
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A portion of something, especially a portion given or allotted to someone.
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 | share |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃɛə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #642 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “share” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for share is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɛə/. Corpus data places it at rank #642 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for share, with forms such as "hsare", "sahre", and "shaer". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "she", "sure", "star", 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 English schare, schere, from Old English sċearu (“a cutting, shaving, a shearing, tonsure, part, division, share”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaru, from Proto-Germanic *skarō (“a division, detachment”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cu… The correct English form is share, spelled S-H-A-R-E.
Definition
- 1A portion of something, especially a portion given or allotted to someone.
- 2A financial instrument that shows that one owns a part of a company that provides the benefit of limited liability.
- 3A configuration enabling a resource to be shared over a network.
- 4The action of sharing something with other people via social media.
- 5The sharebone or pubis.
Etymology
From Middle English schare, schere, from Old English sċearu (“a cutting, shaving, a shearing, tonsure, part, division, share”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaru, from Proto-Germanic *skarō (“a division, detachment”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut, divide”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian skar, sker (“a share in a communal pasture”), Dutch schare (“share in property”), German Schar (“band, troop, party, company”), Icelandic skor (“department”). Compare shard, shear. Doublet of eschel.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsare,sahre,shaer,sharre,shhare,shrae,sshare
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of share - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “share”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-A-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʃɛə/ (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. share 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.