sickness
/ˈsɪknɪs/
"sickness" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sickness” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #9,249 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #9,249
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The quality or state of being sick or diseased; illness.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sickness |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɪknɪs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #9,249 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sickness” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sickness is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɪknɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,249 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for sickness, with forms such as "isckness", "scikness", and "sicckness". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sikness, from Old English sēocnes. By surface analysis, sick + -ness. The correct English form is sickness, spelled S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1The quality or state of being sick or diseased; illness.
- 2Nausea; qualmishness; as, sickness of stomach.
- 3The analogical misuse of a rarer or marked grammatical case in the place of a more common or unmarked case.
Etymology
From Middle English sikness, from Old English sēocnes. By surface analysis, sick + -ness.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: isckness,scikness,sicckness,sickenss,sickkness,sicknes,sicknness,sicknses,sicnkess,sikcness,ssickness
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sickness - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “sickness”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɪknɪs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.