shred
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shred", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "shred" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "shred" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shred is aEnglishnoun. It means: A fragment of something; a particle; a piece; also, a very small amount. Pronounced /ʃɹɛd/. Often confused with sure and sore.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shred |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃɹɛd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #19,203 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shred is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɹɛd/. Corpus data places it at rank #19,203 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for shred, with forms such as "hsred", "sherd", and "shhred". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "sure", "sore", "sued", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English shrede, shred (“fragment, piece, scrap; piece cut off from something; strip of material; ornamental strip hanging from the edge of a garment; thread; band or thread woven in a garment; element, streak; plant (?)”) [and other forms], from… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is shred, spelled S-H-R-E-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A fragment of something; a particle; a piece; also, a very small amount.
- 2A long, narrow piece (especially of fabric) cut or torn off; a strip; specifically, a piece of cloth or clothing.
- 3A long, narrow piece (especially of fabric) cut or torn off; a strip; specifically, a piece of cloth or clothing.
- 4A long, narrow piece (especially of fabric) cut or torn off; a strip; specifically, a piece of cloth or clothing.
- 5A piece of gold or silver lace or thread.
- 6A shard or sherd (“a piece of broken glass or pottery”).
- 7A tailor.
Etymology
From Middle English shrede, shred (“fragment, piece, scrap; piece cut off from something; strip of material; ornamental strip hanging from the edge of a garment; thread; band or thread woven in a garment; element, streak; plant (?)”) [and other forms], from Late Old English sċrēad, sċrēade (“piece cut off from something; a paring; a shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō (“a piece, shred; a crack; a cut”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”). Doublet of escrow.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsred,sherd,shhred,shrde,shredd,shrred,srhed,sshred
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shred
Misspelling Variants of "shred"
Frequency rank: #19,203 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: