silicon
/ˈsɪlɪkən/
"silicon" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“silicon” has 10 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #7,179. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #7,179
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A nonmetallic element (symbol Si) with an atomic number of 14 and atomic weight of 28.0855.
Corpus desk
Index EN-silicon · silicon · English
silicon · rank #7,179 · 10 variants · 2 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #7,179
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 2 pairs
- VAR-MID 10 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH Shakespeare
Nearest frequency peer: Shakespeare (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “silicon”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- screwed
screwed
92,825 corpus weight
- shades
shades
92,824 corpus weight
- Shakespeare
Shakespeare
92,823 corpus weight
- silicon
silicon
92,822 corpus weight
- slice
slice
92,821 corpus weight
- spelling
spelling
92,820 corpus weight
What this shows “silicon” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | silicon |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɪlɪkən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #7,179 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “silicon”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 10 spelling variants around silicon (IPA /ˈsɪlɪkən/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #7,179 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for silicon, with forms such as "islicon", "siilcon", and "silcion". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "silicone", "silica", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Coined by Scottish chemist Thomas Thomson as a modification of the earlier name silicium, from the stem of Latin silex (“flint, silica”) + -on from carbon. The correct English form is silicon, spelled S-I-L-I-C-O-N.
Definition
- 1A nonmetallic element (symbol Si) with an atomic number of 14 and atomic weight of 28.0855.
- 2A single atom of this element.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how silicon appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The isolated disordered regions and the amorphous layer have widely different anneal behavior. In the case of germanium and silicon, the isolated disordered regions anneal at moderate temperatures of approximately 200° and 300° C, respectively. The amorphous layers also anneal in a characteristic fashion, but at appreciably higher temperatures, i.e., at a…
His idea is to stand billions of ultrafine wire loops around the edge of a silicon chip — hence the name racetrack — and use electric current to slide infinitesimally small magnets up and down along each of the wires to be read and written as digital ones and zeros.
Etymology
Coined by Scottish chemist Thomas Thomson as a modification of the earlier name silicium, from the stem of Latin silex (“flint, silica”) + -on from carbon.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- islicon
- siilcon
- silcion
- siliccon
- silicno
- siliconn
- siliocn
- sillicon
- sliicon
- ssilicon
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of silicon - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "silicon", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).