sleet
/sliːt/
"sleet" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sleet” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #35,939 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #35,939
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Pellets of ice made of mostly-frozen raindrops or refrozen melted snowflakes.
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 | sleet |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sliːt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #35,939 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sleet” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sleet is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sliːt/. Corpus data places it at rank #35,939 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 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 sleet, with forms such as "lseet", "selet", and "sleett". 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, "slot", "slut", "slit", 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 slete, probably from Old English *slēte, *slȳte, *slīete, from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slautijǭ (“sleet”). Walter W. Skeat, the author of Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, suggests Old Norse sly… The correct English form is sleet, spelled S-L-E-E-T.
Definition
- 1Pellets of ice made of mostly-frozen raindrops or refrozen melted snowflakes.
- 2Precipitation in the form of a mixture of rain and snow.
- 3A smooth coating of ice formed on ground or other objects by freezing rain.
- 4The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
Etymology
From Middle English slete, probably from Old English *slēte, *slȳte, *slīete, from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slautijǭ (“sleet”). Walter W. Skeat, the author of Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, suggests Old Norse slydda (whence Danish slud (“mixture of rain and snow”)). The word appears to be akin to Low German Sloot (“hail”), dialectal German Schloße (“large hailstone”), Old Gutnish sloyta (“slush, sleet”). Doublet of slut.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lseet,selet,sleett,slet,slete,slleet,ssleet
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sleet - 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
How do you spell "sleet"?
What does "sleet" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "sleet"?
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Using “sleet”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-L-E-E-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sliːt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “slot” - see the side-by-side comparison. sleet vs slot
- 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.