sheet
/ʃiːt/
"sheet" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sheet” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,653 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,653
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A thin bed cloth used as a covering for a mattress or as a layer over the sleeper.
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 | sheet |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃiːt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,653 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sheet” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sheet is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃiːt/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,653 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 14 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 sheet, with forms such as "hseet", "sehet", and "sheett". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "shit", "shot", "shut", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English schete; partly from Old English sċīete (“a sheet, a piece of linen cloth”); partly from Old English sċēata (“a corner, angle; the lower corner of a sail, sheet”); and Old English sċēat (“a corner, angle”); all from Proto-Germanic *skauti… The correct English form is sheet, spelled S-H-E-E-T.
Definition
- 1A thin bed cloth used as a covering for a mattress or as a layer over the sleeper.
- 2A piece of paper, usually rectangular, that has been prepared for writing, artwork, drafting, wrapping, manufacture of packaging (boxes, envelopes, etc.), and for other uses. The word does not include scraps and irregular small pieces destined to be recycled, used for stuffing or cushioning or paper mache, etc. In modern books, each sheet of paper is typically folded in half, to produce two leaves and four pages. In the absence of folding, "leaf" and "sheet" are equivalent.
- 3A flat metal pan, often without raised edge, used for baking.
- 4A thin, flat piece or layer of solid material.
- 5A broad, flat expanse or covering of a material on a surface.
- 6An expanse of something.
- 7A line (rope) used to adjust the trim of a sail.
- 8A sail.
- 9The area of ice on which the game of curling is played.
- 10A layer of veneer.
- 11Precipitation of such quantity and force as to resemble a thin, virtually solid wall.
- 12An extensive bed of an eruptive rock intruded between, or overlying, other strata.
- 13The space in the forward or after part of a boat where there are no rowers.
- 14A distinct level or stage within a game.
Etymology
From Middle English schete; partly from Old English sċīete (“a sheet, a piece of linen cloth”); partly from Old English sċēata (“a corner, angle; the lower corner of a sail, sheet”); and Old English sċēat (“a corner, angle”); all from Proto-Germanic *skautijǭ, *skautaz (“corner, wedge, lap”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewd- (“to throw, shoot, pursue, rush”). Cognate with North Frisian skut (“the fold of a garment, lap, coattail”), West Frisian skoat (“sheet; sail; lap”), Dutch schoot (“the fold of a garment, lap, sheet”), German Low German Schote (“a line from the foot of a sail”), German Schoß (“the fold of a garment, lap”), Danish skød (“lap, skirt”), Icelandic skaut (“the corner of a cloth, a line from the foot of a sail, the skirt or sleeve of a garment, a hood”), Norwegian skaut (“headdress”), Swedish sköt (“sheet”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hseet,sehet,sheett,shet,shete,shheet,ssheet
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sheet - 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 “sheet”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-E-E-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʃiːt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “shit” - see the side-by-side comparison. sheet vs shit
- 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.