short
/ʃɔːt/
"short" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“short” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #472. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #472
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having a small distance from one end or edge to another, either horizontally or vertically.
Corpus desk
Index EN-short · short · English
short · rank #472 · 8 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #472
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH police
Nearest frequency peer: police (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “short”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- million
million
99,532 corpus weight
- morning
morning
99,531 corpus weight
- police
police
99,530 corpus weight
- short
short
99,529 corpus weight
- stay
stay
99,528 corpus weight
- taken
taken
99,527 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “short” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | short |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ʃɔːt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #472 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “short” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around short (IPA /ʃɔːt/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #472 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 18 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for short, with forms such as "hsort", "shhort", and "shorrt". 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, "sor", "sot", "show", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-der.? Proto-Germanic *skertaną Proto-Germanic *skurtaz Proto-West Germanic *skurt Old English sċort Middle English schort English short From Middle English schort, short, from Old English sċeort, sċort (“short”), f… The correct English form is short, spelled S-H-O-R-T.
Definition
- 1Having a small distance from one end or edge to another, either horizontally or vertically.
- 2Of a person, living being, or object, having a comparatively small height.
- 3Having little duration.
- 4Of a word or phrase, constituting an abbreviation (for another) or shortened form (of another).
- 5Of a fielder or fielding position, that is relatively close to the batsman.
- 6Of a ball, bowled so that it bounces relatively far from the batsman.
- 7Of an approach shot or putt, that falls short of the green or the hole.
- 8Of betting odds, offering a small return for the money wagered.
- 9Of pastries or (metallurgy) of materials, brittle, crumbly.
- 10Abrupt, brief, pointed, curt.
- 11Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty.
- 12Insufficiently provided; inadequately supplied, especially with money; scantily furnished; lacking.
- 13Deficient; less; not coming up to a measure or standard.
- 14Undiluted; neat.
- 15Not distant in time; near at hand.
- 16Being in a financial investment position that is structured to be profitable if the price of the underlying security declines in the future.
- 17Doubtful of, skeptical of.
- 18Of money, given in the fewest possible notes, i.e. those of the largest denomination.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how short appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Nhung Ngo had the shortest legs at Site-43. She was the shortest member of staff, two inches beneath the positively elfin Delfina Ibanez, and yet Lillian found her inexplicably difficult to shake. Power-walking down the halls didn't do the trick, as it always did when Wettle-dodging, since the diminutive headshrink kept disappearing into commissaries or s…
Our meeting was a short six minutes today. Every day for the past month it’s been at least twenty minutes long.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-der.? Proto-Germanic *skertaną Proto-Germanic *skurtaz Proto-West Germanic *skurt Old English sċort Middle English schort English short From Middle English schort, short, from Old English sċeort, sċort (“short”), from Proto-West Germanic *skurt, from Proto-Germanic *skurtaz (“short”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-. Doublet of shirt, skirt, and curt. Cognates Cognate with Scots short, schort (“short”), French court, Dutch kort, German kurz, Old High German scurz (“short”) (whence Middle High German schurz), Old Norse skorta (“to lack”) (whence Danish skorte), Albanian shkurt (“short, brief”), Latin curtus (“shortened, incomplete”) and Proto-Slavic *kortъkъ. See more at shirt.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- hsort
- shhort
- shorrt
- shortt
- shotr
- shrot
- sohrt
- sshort
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of short - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "short", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "short". Here's where to go from here.
- "short" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "sor". View pair
- 8 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #472 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.