Sirius
/ˈsɪɹi.əs/
"sirius" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Sirius” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #20,774 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #20,774
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A telescopic binary star, visually the brightest star in the night sky, a part of the northern constellation of Canis Major (the Greater Dog), one of three stars in the Winter Triangle asterism. Lo...
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 | Sirius |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɪɹi.əs/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #20,774 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Sirius” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Sirius is 6 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɪɹi.əs/. Corpus data places it at rank #20,774 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for Sirius, with forms such as "isrius", "siirus", and "sirisu". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "strips", "Straus", "spirits", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin Sīrius, from Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seírios), usually taken from σείριος (seírios, “scorching; scorcher”). The correct English form is Sirius, spelled S-I-R-I-U-S.
Definition
- 1A telescopic binary star, visually the brightest star in the night sky, a part of the northern constellation of Canis Major (the Greater Dog), one of three stars in the Winter Triangle asterism. Long understood as a single extremely luminous white star, it was associated in ancient Egypt with the Nile flood and in Greek and Roman culture with the "dog days" of summer.
- 2The brightest star of the aforementioned star system; the white main-sequence star Sirius A.
Etymology
From Latin Sīrius, from Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seírios), usually taken from σείριος (seírios, “scorching; scorcher”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: isrius,siirus,sirisu,siriuss,sirrius,siruis,sriius,ssirius
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Sirius - 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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Using “Sirius”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-I-R-I-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɪɹi.əs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “strips” - see the side-by-side comparison. Sirius vs strips
- 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.