slot
/slɒt/
"slot" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“slot” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,184 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,184
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A narrow depression, perforation, or aperture; especially, one for the reception of a piece fitting or sliding into it.
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 | slot |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /slɒt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #6,184 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “slot” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for slot is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /slɒt/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,184 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for slot, with forms such as "sllot", "slott", and "slto". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "so", "son", "sox", 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 slot, from Old French esclot, likely from Old Norse slóð (“track”). As a gambling machine, via clipping of slot machine. Compare sleuth. The scheduling (calendar) sense is by a metaphor whereby the time span is equated with the segment o… The correct English form is slot, spelled S-L-O-T.
Definition
- 1A narrow depression, perforation, or aperture; especially, one for the reception of a piece fitting or sliding into it.
- 2A period of time or position within a schedule or sequence.
- 3Clipping of slot machine (“a game of chance played for money using a coin slot”).
- 4The track of an animal, especially a deer; spoor.
- 5A crack or fissure in a glacier or snowfield; a chasm; a crevasse.
- 6The vagina.
- 7The allocated time for an aircraft's departure or arrival at an airport's runway.
- 8A space in memory or on disk etc. in which a particular type of object can be stored.
- 9In a flying display, the fourth position; after the leader and two wingmen.
- 10The barrel or tube of a wave.
- 11A rectangular area directly in front of the net and extending toward the blue line.
- 12The area between the last offensive lineman on either side of the center and the wide receiver on that side.
- 13A channel opening in the stator or rotor of a rotating machine for ventilation and insertion of windings.
- 14The inside of the "rim" or semicircular copy desk, occupied by the supervisor of the copy editors.
- 15A fish that is within regulation size limits and hence can be caught and kept.
Etymology
From Middle English slot, from Old French esclot, likely from Old Norse slóð (“track”). As a gambling machine, via clipping of slot machine. Compare sleuth. The scheduling (calendar) sense is by a metaphor whereby the time span is equated with the segment of a page or part of a device that represents it.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sllot,slott,slto,solt,sslot
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of slot - 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
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Using “slot”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-L-O-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /slɒt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “so” - see the side-by-side comparison. slot vs so
- 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.