slut
/slʌt/
"slut" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“slut” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #10,278 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #10,278
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sexually promiscuous woman.
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 | slut |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /slʌt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #10,278 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “slut” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for slut is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /slʌt/. Corpus data places it at rank #10,278 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for slut, with forms such as "lsut", "sllut", and "sltu". 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, "su", "sun", "sub", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English slutt, slutte, slute (“a dirty or slovenly person, usually a woman, scullery maid; messy animal to prepare as food; slush, mud”), probably from Old English *slȳte (“sleet”), from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slauti… The correct English form is slut, spelled S-L-U-T.
Definition
- 1A sexually promiscuous woman.
- 2A sexually promiscuous woman.
- 3Any sexually promiscuous person.
- 4Someone who seeks attention through inappropriate means or to an excessive degree.
- 5A disloyal individual; someone who does not commit to a particular thing.
- 6A slovenly, untidy person, usually a woman.
- 7A bold, outspoken woman.
- 8A female dog.
- 9A maidservant.
- 10A rag soaked in a flammable substance and lit for illumination.
Etymology
From Middle English slutt, slutte, slute (“a dirty or slovenly person, usually a woman, scullery maid; messy animal to prepare as food; slush, mud”), probably from Old English *slȳte (“sleet”), from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slautijǭ (“sleet, hail”), related to Proto-West Germanic *slaut (“puddle, ditch”). Compare Dutch slodder and slet, dialectal Swedish slata (“idle woman”), Norwegian sludd (“sleet”), and the dialectal Norwegian slutr (“sleet, impure liquid”). Doublet of sleet.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lsut,sllut,sltu,slutt,sslut,sult
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of slut - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “slut”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-L-U-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /slʌt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “su” - see the side-by-side comparison. slut vs su
- 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.