sky
/skaɪ/
"sky" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sky” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,968) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #1,968
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The atmosphere above a given point, especially as visible from the surface of the Earth as the place where the sun, moon, stars, and clouds are seen.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sky · sky · English
sky · rank #1,968 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,968
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH shape
Nearest frequency peer: shape (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “sky”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Scott
Scott
98,036 corpus weight
- session
session
98,035 corpus weight
- shape
shape
98,034 corpus weight
- sky
sky
98,033 corpus weight
- teaching
teaching
98,032 corpus weight
- toward
toward
98,031 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “sky” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | sky |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skaɪ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,968 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “sky”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for sky is neighbouring look-alikes ("so", "SS", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /skaɪ/. Frequency #1,968 among 6,566 “S” headwords. 7 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for sky, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. 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: The noun is derived from Middle English sky (“sky; cloud; mist”), also spelled ski, skie, [and other forms], from Old Norse ský (“cloud”), from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (“cloud; sky”), from *skiwô (“cloud; cloud cover, haze; sky”) (whence Old English sċēo (“c… The correct English form is sky, spelled S-K-Y.
Definition
- 1The atmosphere above a given point, especially as visible from the surface of the Earth as the place where the sun, moon, stars, and clouds are seen.
- 2With a descriptive word: the part of the sky which can be seen from a specific place or at a specific time; its climate, condition, etc.
- 3Usually preceded by the: the abode of God or the gods, angels, the souls of deceased people, etc.; heaven; also, powers emanating from heaven.
- 4Ellipsis of sky blue.
- 5The set of all lightlike lines (or directions) passing through a given point in space-time.
- 6In an art gallery: the upper rows of pictures that cannot easily be seen; also, the place where such pictures are hung.
- 7A cloud.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sky appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That year, a meteor fell from the sky.
For beſides the groues, / The skyes, the fountaines, euery region neare / Seeme all one mutuall cry. I neuer heard / So muſicall a diſcord, ſuch ſweete thunder.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English sky (“sky; cloud; mist”), also spelled ski, skie, [and other forms], from Old Norse ský (“cloud”), from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (“cloud; sky”), from *skiwô (“cloud; cloud cover, haze; sky”) (whence Old English sċēo (“cloud”) and Middle English skew (“air; sky; (rare) cloud”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover; to conceal, hide”). Partly displaced Old English heofon, which survives in the reflex heaven, still sometimes used in the sense of sky, but usually in high or poetic register. The verb is derived from the noun. Cognates The English word is cognate with Old English scēo (“cloud”), Old Saxon scio, skio, skeo (“light cloud cover”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål sky (“cloud”), Old Irish ceo (“mist, fog”), Irish ceo (“mist, fog”). It is also related to Old English scūa (“shadow, darkness”), Latin obscūrus (“dark, shadowy”), Sanskrit स्कुनाति (skunāti, “he covers”). See also hide, hose, house, hut, shoe.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sky", not the corpus desk frequency band.