silken
/ˈsɪlkən/
"silken" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“silken” has 9 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #46,178. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #46,178
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Made of silk.
Corpus desk
Index EN-silken · silken · English
silken · rank #46,178 · 9 variants · 12 confusables
- FREQ-MID #46,178
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 12 pairs
- VAR-MID 9 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH shuddering
Nearest frequency peer: shuddering (-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 “silken”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- Shauna
Shauna
53,828 corpus weight
- Shinto
Shinto
53,826 corpus weight
- shuddering
shuddering
53,824 corpus weight
- silken
silken
53,823 corpus weight
- slippage
slippage
53,821 corpus weight
- slowness
slowness
53,820 corpus weight
What this shows “silken” 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 | silken |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈsɪlkən/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #46,178 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “silken”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 9 spelling variants around silken (IPA /ˈsɪlkən/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #46,178 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for silken, with forms such as "islken", "siklen", and "silekn". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "siren", "silky", "silver", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English silken, selken, seolkene, from Old English seolcen, from seolc (“silk”) + -en, from an unattested early Proto-West Germanic borrowing from Latin sēricum, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós, “silken”), from σήρ (sḗr, “silkworm”) + -ικός … The correct English form is silken, spelled S-I-L-K-E-N.
Definition
- 1Made of silk.
- 2Synonym of silky, like silk, silklike, particularly
- 3Synonym of silky, like silk, silklike, particularly
- 4Dressed in silk.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how silken appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
a silken veil
Come then youth, Beauty, and Blood, all ye soft powers, / Whose silken flatteryes swell a few fond houres.
Etymology
From Middle English silken, selken, seolkene, from Old English seolcen, from seolc (“silk”) + -en, from an unattested early Proto-West Germanic borrowing from Latin sēricum, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós, “silken”), from σήρ (sḗr, “silkworm”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”). Equivalent to silk + -en (“made of”). Cognate with Scots selkin, silkin (“silken”), Icelandic silki (“silken”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- islken
- siklen
- silekn
- silkenn
- silkken
- silkne
- sillken
- sliken
- ssilken
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of silken - 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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "silken", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).