shower
/ˈʃaʊ.ə(ɹ)/
"shower" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shower” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,026 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,026
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A brief fall of precipitation (spell of rain, or a similar fall of snow, sleet, or cascade); burst of hefty precipitation.
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 | shower |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈʃaʊ.ə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,026 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shower” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shower is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʃaʊ.ə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,026 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for shower, with forms such as "hsower", "shhower", and "shoewr". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "shows", "shown", "sober", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English schour (“shower”), from Old English sċūr (“shower”), from Proto-West Germanic *skūru (“shower”), from Proto-Germanic *skūrō (“storm, short shower”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱēwer- (“north, north wind, cold wind, rain shower… The correct English form is shower, spelled S-H-O-W-E-R.
Definition
- 1A brief fall of precipitation (spell of rain, or a similar fall of snow, sleet, or cascade); burst of hefty precipitation.
- 2A device for bathing by which water is made to fall on the body from a height, either from a tank or by the action of a pump.
- 3An instance of using of this device in order to bathe oneself.
- 4A quantity of something that has characteristics of a rain shower.
- 5A party associated with a significant event in a person's life, at which the person usually receives gifts.
- 6A party associated with a significant event in a person's life, at which the person usually receives gifts.
- 7A party associated with a significant event in a person's life, at which the person usually receives gifts.
- 8A pattern where the juggler passes objects horizontally from one hand to the other around chest height, and upward over the juggler's head to return to the first hand.
- 9A battle, an attack; conflict.
- 10A shower of shit.
- 11Used as an intensifying pluralizer or intensifier
- 12A group of people perceived as incompetent or worthless.
Etymology
From Middle English schour (“shower”), from Old English sċūr (“shower”), from Proto-West Germanic *skūru (“shower”), from Proto-Germanic *skūrō (“storm, short shower”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱēwer- (“north, north wind, cold wind, rain shower”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch schoer (“downpour, heavy rainshower”), German Schauer (“shower”), Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish skur (“shower”), Faroese skúrur (“shower”), Icelandic skúr (“shower”), Norn skur (“squall”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌿𐍂𐌰 (skūra, “storm”), Italian coro (“northwestern wind”), Spanish cauro (“northwestern wind”), Belarusian се́вер (sjévjer), сі́вер (sívjer), Bulgarian and Russian се́вер (séver, “north”), Czech and Slovak sever (“north”), Macedonian север (sever, “north”), Serbo-Croatian sȅvēr, sjȅvēr (“north”), Slovene sẹ́ver (“north”), Ukrainian сі́вер (síver, “cold, cold, bitter wind”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsower,shhower,shoewr,showerr,showre,showwer,shwoer,sohwer,sshower
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shower - 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
How do you spell "shower"?
What does "shower" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “shower”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-O-W-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈʃaʊ.ə(ɹ)/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “shows” - see the side-by-side comparison. shower vs shows
- 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.