shark
/ʃɑːk/
"shark" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shark” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,098 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,098
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any predatory fish of the superorder Selachimorpha, with a cartilaginous skeleton and 5 to 7 gill slits on each side of its head.
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 | shark |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃɑːk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,098 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shark” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shark is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɑːk/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,098 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for shark, with forms such as "hsark", "sahrk", and "shakr". 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, "star", "shaw", "soak", 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 shark (used by Thomas Beckington in 1442 to refer to a kind of fish), of uncertain origin. Most likely from a semantic extension of the German-derived shark (“scoundrel”), see below. The fish was originally called a dogfish or haye in En… The correct English form is shark, spelled S-H-A-R-K.
Definition
- 1Any predatory fish of the superorder Selachimorpha, with a cartilaginous skeleton and 5 to 7 gill slits on each side of its head.
- 2Flesh of this animal, consumed as food.
- 3Any fish of the class Chondrichthyes, especially an extinct shark-like holocephalian.
- 4A freshwater fish that resembles a true shark (Selachimorpha) in appearance or movement; a freshwater shark.
- 5A freshwater fish that resembles a true shark (Selachimorpha) in appearance or movement; a freshwater shark.
- 6A freshwater fish that resembles a true shark (Selachimorpha) in appearance or movement; a freshwater shark.
- 7A freshwater fish that resembles a true shark (Selachimorpha) in appearance or movement; a freshwater shark.
- 8A freshwater fish that resembles a true shark (Selachimorpha) in appearance or movement; a freshwater shark.
- 9A noctuid moth of species Cucullia umbratica.
- 10A university student who is not a fresher that has engaged in sexual activity with a fresher; usually habitually and with multiple people.
Etymology
From Middle English shark (used by Thomas Beckington in 1442 to refer to a kind of fish), of uncertain origin. Most likely from a semantic extension of the German-derived shark (“scoundrel”), see below. The fish was originally called a dogfish or haye in English and Middle English. Its name in Old English is unknown, although some uses of the word hranfisċ that do not appear to carry the sense of "whale" may have been referencing it. alternative theories Some older dictionaries derived the word from Latin c(h)archarias, c(h)acharus (from Ancient Greek), but admit that "the requisite [Old French] forms intermediate between E. shark and L. carcharus are not found, and it is not certain that the name [shark] was orig. applied to the fish; it may have been first used of a greedy man". Other older authorities speculated that the word might derive from Yucatec Maya xok (“fish”) (/ʃok/), as John Hawkins brought a specimen from the area where Mayan was spoken to England in the 1560s. However, the 1442 use rules out a New World origin for the word.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsark,sahrk,shakr,sharkk,sharrk,shhark,shrak,sshark
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shark - 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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Using “shark”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-A-R-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʃɑːk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “star” - see the side-by-side comparison. shark vs star
- 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.