sheepish
/ˈʃiːpɪʃ/
"sheepish" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sheepish” is uncommon English (frequency #58,357 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #58,357
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having the characteristics of a sheep, as meekness, shyness, or docility.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sheepish · sheepish · English
sheepish · rank #58,357 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #58,357
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH sheaths
Nearest frequency peer: sheaths (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “sheepish”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Shawna
Shawna
41,646 corpus weight
- sheaths
sheaths
41,645 corpus weight
- sheepish
sheepish
41,644 corpus weight
- Sherrod
Sherrod
41,643 corpus weight
- Shevchenko
Shevchenko
41,642 corpus weight
- shindig
shindig
41,641 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “sheepish” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sheepish |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈʃiːpɪʃ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #58,357 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sheepish” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sheepish is uncommon English at frequency #58,357 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈʃiːpɪʃ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for sheepish, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English schepische, shepisse, shepisshe; equivalent to sheep + -ish. The correct English form is sheepish, spelled S-H-E-E-P-I-S-H.
Definition
- 1Having the characteristics of a sheep, as meekness, shyness, or docility.
- 2Shy, meek, ashamed or embarrassed.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sheepish appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“King Ty? Your sister is back.” “I don't want to talk to her unless she's here to apologize. Does she look sheepish?” “I guess I've seen a sheep in a cage before, so, yeah, kind of.”
a sheepish girl
Etymology
From Middle English schepische, shepisse, shepisshe; equivalent to sheep + -ish.
This word in other languages
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 "sheepish", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).