shop
/ʃɒp/
"shop" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shop” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,408 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,408
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An establishment that sells goods or services to the public; originally only a physical location, but now a virtual establishment as well.
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 | shop |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃɒp/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,408 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shop” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shop is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɒp/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,408 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 generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for shop, with forms such as "hsop", "shhop", and "shopp". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "SP", "son", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English shoppe, schoppe, from Old English sċoppa (“shed; booth; stall; shop”), from Proto-Germanic *skupp-, *skup- (“barn, shed”), from Proto-Indo-European *skub-, *skup- (“to bend, bow, curve, vault”). Cognate with Dutch schop (“spade, kick”), … The correct English form is shop, spelled S-H-O-P.
Definition
- 1An establishment that sells goods or services to the public; originally only a physical location, but now a virtual establishment as well.
- 2A place where things are manufactured or crafted; a workshop.
- 3A large garage where vehicle mechanics work.
- 4Workplace; office. Used mainly in expressions such as shop talk, closed shop and shop floor.
- 5Discussion of business or professional affairs.
- 6A variety of classes taught in junior or senior high school that teach vocational skills.
- 7An establishment where a barber or beautician works.
- 8An act of shopping, especially routine shopping for food and other domestic supplies.
- 9The collective items bought (or to be bought) on a shopping trip.
Etymology
From Middle English shoppe, schoppe, from Old English sċoppa (“shed; booth; stall; shop”), from Proto-Germanic *skupp-, *skup- (“barn, shed”), from Proto-Indo-European *skub-, *skup- (“to bend, bow, curve, vault”). Cognate with Dutch schop (“spade, kick”), German Schuppen (“shed”), German Schober (“barn”), French échoppe (“booth, shop”) (< Germanic). The verb is denominal. The noun senses “act of shopping”, “purchased items” are backformed from the verb.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsop,shhop,shopp,shpo,sohp,sshop
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shop - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “shop”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-O-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʃɒp/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “so” - see the side-by-side comparison. shop vs so
- 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.