six
/sɪks/
"six" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“six” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #519 in English word frequency and used as a numeral.
- #519
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A numerical value equal to 6; the number following five and preceding seven. This number of dots: (••••••).
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 | six |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Numeral |
| IPA | /sɪks/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #519 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “six” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for six is 3 letters long, classified as a numeral, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɪks/. Corpus data places it at rank #519 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A numerical value equal to 6; the number following five and preceding seven. This number of dots: (••••••).".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for six, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "SS", "SP", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *swéḱs From Middle English six, from Old English six, from Proto-West Germanic *sehs, from Proto-Germanic *sehs, from Proto-Indo-European *swéḱs. Compare West Frisian seis, Dutch zes, Low German söss, sess, German sechs, Norwegian and Danish seks,… The correct English form is six, spelled S-I-X.
Definition
- 1A numerical value equal to 6; the number following five and preceding seven. This number of dots: (••••••).
Etymology
PIE word *swéḱs From Middle English six, from Old English six, from Proto-West Germanic *sehs, from Proto-Germanic *sehs, from Proto-Indo-European *swéḱs. Compare West Frisian seis, Dutch zes, Low German söss, sess, German sechs, Norwegian and Danish seks, also Latin sex, Ancient Greek ἕξ (héx), Sanskrit षष् (ṣaṣ). Doublet of sice. Toilet sense predates military usage.
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 “six”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-I-X - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɪks/ (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. six 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.