skink
/skɪŋk/
"skink" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skink” is an uncommon English word, ranked #80,892 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #80,892
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A shin of beef.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | skink |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skɪŋk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #80,892 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “skink” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for skink is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skɪŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #80,892 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for skink, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Possibly from Middle Low German schink, schinke, schenke (“leg; shank; shin bone; ham”), from Old Saxon skinka, from Proto-West Germanic *skinkō (“shank; thigh; that which is bent”), from Proto-Germanic *skinkô, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to limp;… The correct English form is skink, spelled S-K-I-N-K.
Definition
- 1A shin of beef.
- 2A soup or pottage made from a boiled shin of beef.
- 3Usually preceded by a descriptive word: a soup or pottage made using other ingredients.
Etymology
Possibly from Middle Low German schink, schinke, schenke (“leg; shank; shin bone; ham”), from Old Saxon skinka, from Proto-West Germanic *skinkō (“shank; thigh; that which is bent”), from Proto-Germanic *skinkô, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to limp; to be crooked, slant”). The word is cognate with Danish skinke (“ham”), Middle Dutch schenke, schinke (“shin; hough; ham”), Icelandic skinka (“ham”), Norwegian skinke (“ham”), Old English ġesċincio, ġesċinco (“kidney fat”), Old High German skinka, skinko (“shank; shin bone”) (Middle High German schinke (“shank; shin bone; ham”), modern German Schinken (“ham; pork from the hindquarters”)), Old Saxon skinka (“ham”), Old Swedish skinke (modern Swedish skinka (“ham”)).
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 “skink”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-K-I-N-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skɪŋk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.