skittle
/ˈskɪtəl/
"skittle" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skittle” is an uncommon English word, ranked #89,912 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #89,912
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - One of the wooden targets used in skittles.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | skittle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈskɪtəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #89,912 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “skittle” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for skittle is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈskɪtəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #89,912 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "One of the wooden targets used in skittles.".
skittle has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Origin unknown. Perhaps of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse skutill (“bolt, harpoon”), related to skjóta (“to shoot”), but the OED dismisses this connection as conjecture. The Old Norse word is related to Swedish and Danish skyttel (“shuttle, child's t… The correct English form is skittle, spelled S-K-I-T-T-L-E.
Definition
- 1One of the wooden targets used in skittles.
Etymology
Origin unknown. Perhaps of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse skutill (“bolt, harpoon”), related to skjóta (“to shoot”), but the OED dismisses this connection as conjecture. The Old Norse word is related to Swedish and Danish skyttel (“shuttle, child's toy”). Compare also Old English sċytel (“a dart, bolt”). More at shuttle.
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 “skittle”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-K-I-T-T-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈskɪtəl/ (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.