skin
/skɪn/
"skin" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skin” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,319 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,319
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The outer protective layer of the body of any animal, including of a human.
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 | skin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skɪn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,319 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “skin” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for skin is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,319 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 18 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 skin, with forms such as "ksin", "sikn", and "skinn". 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, "son", "sun", "sky", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English skyn, skinn, from Old English scinn, from Old Norse skinn (“animal hide”), from Proto-Germanic *skinþą, from Proto-Indo-European *sken- (“to split off”), nasal variant of *skeh₁i-d- (“to cut”). Partially displaced native Old English hȳd … The correct English form is skin, spelled S-K-I-N.
Definition
- 1The outer protective layer of the body of any animal, including of a human.
- 2The outer protective layer of the fruit of a plant.
- 3The skin and fur of an individual animal used by humans for clothing, upholstery, etc.
- 4A congealed layer on the surface of a liquid.
- 5A set of resources that modifies the appearance and/or layout of the graphical user interface of a computer program.
- 6An alternate appearance (texture map or geometry) for a character model in a video game.
- 7Rolling paper for cigarettes.
- 8Clipping of skinhead.
- 9A subgroup of Australian aboriginal people.
- 10Bare flesh, particularly bare breasts.
- 11A vessel made of skin, used for holding liquids.
- 12That part of a sail, when furled, which remains on the outside and covers the whole.
- 13The covering, as of planking or iron plates, outside the framing, forming the sides and bottom of a vessel; the shell; also, a lining inside the framing.
- 14The outer surface covering much of the wings and fuselage of an aircraft.
- 15A drink of whisky served hot.
- 16A person; chap.
- 17A purse.
- 18A member of the team not wearing shirts, in a shirts and skins game.
Etymology
From Middle English skyn, skinn, from Old English scinn, from Old Norse skinn (“animal hide”), from Proto-Germanic *skinþą, from Proto-Indo-European *sken- (“to split off”), nasal variant of *skeh₁i-d- (“to cut”). Partially displaced native Old English hȳd (“skin, hide”), from which derives hide. Cognate with Dutch schinde (“bark”), dialectal German Schinde (“fruit peel”); also Breton skant (“scales”), Old Irish cenn (“covering, shell”), Irish scáin (“to tear, burst”), Latin scindō (“to split, divide”), Sanskrit छिनत्ति (chinátti, “to split”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ksin,sikn,skinn,skkin,skni,sskin
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of skin - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “skin”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-K-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “son” - see the side-by-side comparison. skin vs son
- 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.