silt
/sɪlt/
"silt" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“silt” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #30,585 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #30,585
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Mud or fine earth deposited from running or standing water.
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 | silt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɪlt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #30,585 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “silt” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for silt is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɪlt/. Corpus data places it at rank #30,585 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for silt, with forms such as "islt", "sillt", and "siltt". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "SL", "six", "sir", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *séh₂ls From Middle English silte, cilte, cylte, perhaps from Middle English silen ("to filter; strain"; equivalent to sile + -t), or cognate with Norwegian and Danish sylt (“salt marsh”), Middle Low German sulte (“salt-marsh”), German Sülze (“mea… The correct English form is silt, spelled S-I-L-T.
Definition
- 1Mud or fine earth deposited from running or standing water.
- 2Any material with similar physical characteristics, regardless of its origins or transport.
- 3A particle from 3.9 to 62.5 microns in diameter, following the Wentworth scale.
Etymology
PIE word *séh₂ls From Middle English silte, cilte, cylte, perhaps from Middle English silen ("to filter; strain"; equivalent to sile + -t), or cognate with Norwegian and Danish sylt (“salt marsh”), Middle Low German sulte (“salt-marsh”), German Sülze (“meat in aspic”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *sultijō (“salty water; brine”). Related to Old English sealt (“salt”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: islt,sillt,siltt,sitl,ssilt
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of silt - 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 “silt”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-I-L-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɪlt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “SL” - see the side-by-side comparison. silt vs SL
- 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.