shed
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shed", 4-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 "shed" 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 "shed" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shed is aEnglishverb. It means: To part, separate or divide. Pronounced /ʃɛd/. It ranks #4,894 in English word frequency. Often confused with sue and shy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shed |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ʃɛd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,894 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shed is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɛd/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,894 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for shed, with forms such as "hsed", "sehd", and "shde". 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, "sue", "shy", "Sid", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English scheden, schede, from Old English scēadan, scādan (“to separate, divide, part, make a line of separation between; remove from association or companionship; distinguish, discriminate, decide, determine, appoint; shatter, shed; expound; de… 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 shed, spelled S-H-E-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To part, separate or divide.
- 2To part with, separate from, leave off; cast off, cast, let fall, be divested of.
- 3To pour; to make flow.
- 4To allow to flow or fall.
- 5To radiate, cast, give off (light).
- 6To pour forth, give off, impart.
- 7To fall in drops; to pour.
- 8To sprinkle; to intersperse; to cover.
- 9To divide, as the warp threads, so as to form a shed, or passageway, for the shuttle.
Etymology
From Middle English scheden, schede, from Old English scēadan, scādan (“to separate, divide, part, make a line of separation between; remove from association or companionship; distinguish, discriminate, decide, determine, appoint; shatter, shed; expound; decree; write down; differ”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaiþan, from Proto-Germanic *skaiþaną (compare West Frisian skiede, Dutch and German scheiden), from Proto-Indo-European *skeyt- (“to cut, part, divide, separate”), from *skey-. See also Irish scian (“knife”), Lithuanian skėsti (“to spread”), ski̇́esti (“to separate”), Old Church Slavonic цѣдити (cěditi, “to filter, strain”), Ancient Greek σχίζω (skhízō, “to split”), Old Armenian ցտեմ (cʻtem, “to scratch”), Sanskrit च्यति (cyáti, “he cuts off”)). Related to shoad, shit, sheath.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsed,sehd,shde,shedd,shhed,sshed
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shed
Misspelling Variants of "shed"
Frequency rank: #4,894 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: