shortness
"shortness" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shortness” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #33,846 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #33,846
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The property of being short, of being small of stature or brief.
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 | shortness |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #33,846 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shortness” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shortness is 9 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #33,846 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for shortness, with forms such as "hsortness", "shhortness", and "shorntess". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "soreness", "softness", "shortest", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English schortnesse, from Old English sċortnes, sċeortnys, equivalent to short + -ness. The correct English form is shortness, spelled S-H-O-R-T-N-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1The property of being short, of being small of stature or brief.
- 2The result or product of being short.
- 3The property of being short or terse.
Etymology
From Middle English schortnesse, from Old English sċortnes, sċeortnys, equivalent to short + -ness.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsortness,shhortness,shorntess,shorrtness,shortenss,shortnes,shortnness,shortnses,shorttness,shotrness,shrotness,sohrtness,sshortness
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shortness - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “shortness”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-O-R-T-N-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “soreness” - see the side-by-side comparison. shortness vs soreness
- 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.