sin
/sɪn/
"sin" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sin” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,848 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,848
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A violation of divine will or religious law.
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 | sin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɪn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #3,848 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sin” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sin is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,848 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for sin in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "SS", "SP", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sinne, synne, sunne, zen, from Old English synn (“sin”), from Proto-West Germanic *sunnju, from Proto-Germanic *sunjō (“truth, excuse”) and *sundī, *sundijō (“sin”), from , from *h₁sónts ("being, true", implying a verdict of "truly guilt… The correct English form is sin, spelled S-I-N.
Definition
- 1A violation of divine will or religious law.
- 2Sinfulness, depravity, iniquity.
- 3A misdeed or wrong.
- 4A sin offering; a sacrifice for sin.
- 5An embodiment of sin; a very wicked person.
- 6A flaw or mistake.
- 7sin bin
Etymology
From Middle English sinne, synne, sunne, zen, from Old English synn (“sin”), from Proto-West Germanic *sunnju, from Proto-Germanic *sunjō (“truth, excuse”) and *sundī, *sundijō (“sin”), from , from *h₁sónts ("being, true", implying a verdict of "truly guilty" against an accusation or charge), from *h₁es- (“to be”); compare Old English sōþ ("true"; see sooth). Doublet of suttee. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sände, Säände (“sin”), West Frisian sûnde (“sin”), German Sünde (“sin”), Luxembourgish Sënd, Sënn (“sin”), Vilamovian zynd (“sin”) Yiddish זינד (zind, “sin”), Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish synd (“sin”), Gothic 𐍃𐌿𐌽𐌾𐌰 (sunja, “truth”), Latin sont-, sons (“sinful, guilty, criminal”).
This word in other languages
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 “sin”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “so” - see the side-by-side comparison. sin vs so
- 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.