skill
/skɪl/
"skill" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skill” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,526 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,526
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate.
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 | skill |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skɪl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,526 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “skill” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for skill is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,526 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for skill, with forms such as "ksill", "sikll", and "skil". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "skin", "soil", "skip", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English skill, skille (also schil, schile), from Old Norse skil (“a distinction, discernment, knowledge”), from Proto-Germanic *skilją (“separation, limit”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”). Cognate with Danish skel (“a sepa… The correct English form is skill, spelled S-K-I-L-L.
Definition
- 1A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate.
- 2Discrimination; judgment; propriety; reason; cause.
- 3Knowledge; understanding.
- 4Display of art; exercise of ability; contrivance; address.
Etymology
From Middle English skill, skille (also schil, schile), from Old Norse skil (“a distinction, discernment, knowledge”), from Proto-Germanic *skilją (“separation, limit”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”). Cognate with Danish skel (“a separation, boundary, divide”), Swedish skäl (“reason”), Dutch verschil (“difference”) and schillen (“to separate the outer layer (schil) from the product”, verb).
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ksill,sikll,skil,skkill,sklil,sskill
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of skill - 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 “skill”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-K-I-L-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skɪl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “skin” - see the side-by-side comparison. skill vs skin
- 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.