sleep
/sliːp/
"sleep" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sleep” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #957 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #957
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To rest in a state of reduced consciousness.
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 | sleep |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /sliːp/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #957 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sleep” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sleep is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sliːp/. Corpus data places it at rank #957 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for sleep, with forms such as "lseep", "selep", and "sleepp". 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, "slip", "slew", "slop", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English slepen, from Anglian Old English slēpan (West Saxon Old English slǣpan), from Proto-West Germanic *slāpan, from Proto-Germanic *slēpaną (“to sleep”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian sleepe, sliap, sliip, släipe (“to sleep”), Saterlan… The correct English form is sleep, spelled S-L-E-E-P.
Definition
- 1To rest in a state of reduced consciousness.
- 2To have sexual intercourse (see sleep with).
- 3To accommodate in beds.
- 4To be careless, inattentive, or unconcerned; not to be vigilant; to live thoughtlessly.
- 5To be dead.
- 6To be, or appear to be, in repose; to be quiet; to be unemployed, unused, or unagitated; to rest; to lie dormant.
- 7To wait for a period of time without performing any action.
- 8To place into a state of hibernation.
- 9To spin on its axis with no other perceptible motion.
- 10To cause (a spinning top or yo-yo) to spin on its axis with no other perceptible motion.
Etymology
From Middle English slepen, from Anglian Old English slēpan (West Saxon Old English slǣpan), from Proto-West Germanic *slāpan, from Proto-Germanic *slēpaną (“to sleep”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian sleepe, sliap, sliip, släipe (“to sleep”), Saterland Frisian släipe (“to sleep”), West Frisian sliepe (“to sleep”), Alemannic German schlaaffe, schlaafä, schlafe, schloafe, schloafen, schlofe, schlàfu (“to sleep”), Bavarian schlofn, schlåfn, sghlofn (“to sleep”), Central Franconian schlofe (“to sleep”), Cimbrian slaafan, slafan, slavan (“to sleep”), Dutch and Low German slapen (“to sleep”), German schlafen (“to sleep”), Limburgish schloëpe, slaope (“to sleep”), Luxembourgish schlofen (“to sleep”), Mòcheno schloven (“to sleep”), Vilamovian šłȫfa, śłöfa (“to sleep”), Yiddish שלאָפֿן (shlofn, “to sleep”), Crimean Gothic schlipen (“to sleep”), Gothic 𐍃𐌻𐌴𐍀𐌰𐌽 (slēpan, “to sleep”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lseep,selep,sleepp,slep,slepe,slleep,ssleep
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sleep - 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 “sleep”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-L-E-E-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sliːp/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “slip” - see the side-by-side comparison. sleep vs slip
- 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.