shrimp
/ʃɹɪmp/
"shrimp" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shrimp” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #9,815 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #9,815
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 9
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a long abdomen.
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 | shrimp |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ʃɹɪmp/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #9,815 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shrimp” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shrimp is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɹɪmp/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,815 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for shrimp, with forms such as "hsrimp", "shhrimp", and "shirmp". 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 9 confusable-pair relationships, "strip", "shrine", "shrink", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English schrimpe (“shrimp, puny person”), possibly from or related to Middle Low German schrempen (“to wrinkle”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaz (“shrivelled”), from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrivel”), from Proto-Indo-European *s… The correct English form is shrimp, spelled S-H-R-I-M-P.
Definition
- 1Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a long abdomen.
- 2The flesh of such crustaceans.
- 3A small, puny or unimportant person.
- 4Synonym of butterface
- 5A small penis.
Etymology
From Middle English schrimpe (“shrimp, puny person”), possibly from or related to Middle Low German schrempen (“to wrinkle”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaz (“shrivelled”), from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrivel”), from Proto-Indo-European *skremb-, *skr̥mb-. See also Middle High German schrimpf (“a scratch, minor wound”), Norwegian skramp (“thin horse, thin man”); also Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and scrimp, Middle High German schrimpfen (“to shrink, dry up”), Swedish skrympa (“to shrink”); also Lithuanian skrembti (“to crust over, stiffen”), and possibly Albanian shkrumb (“embers, ashes; crumble”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsrimp,shhrimp,shirmp,shrimmp,shrimpp,shripm,shrmip,shrrimp,srhimp,sshrimp
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of shrimp - 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
How do you spell "shrimp"?
What does "shrimp" mean?
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Using “shrimp”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-R-I-M-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʃɹɪmp/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “strip” - see the side-by-side comparison. shrimp vs strip
- 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.