sock
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "sock", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "sock" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "sock" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sock is aEnglishnoun. It means: A knitted or woven covering for the foot. Pronounced /sɒk/. Often confused with son and sox.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sock |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɒk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #12,864 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sock is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɒk/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,864 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for sock, with forms such as "osck", "scok", and "socck". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "son", "sox", "sol", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English socke, sokke, sok, from Old English socc (“sock, light shoe, slipper”), a West Germanic borrowing from Latin soccus (“a light shoe or slipper, buskin”), from Ancient Greek σύκχος (súkkhos, “a kind of shoe”), probably from Phrygian or fro… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is sock, spelled S-O-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A knitted or woven covering for the foot.
- 2Synonym of soccus, a light shoe worn by Ancient Greek and Roman comedic actors.
- 3The lower leg of an animal (of an animal) that is a different color (usually white) from the color pattern on the rest of the animal.
- 4A sleeve for a microphone to reduce noise.
- 5Ellipsis of gun sock.
- 6Ellipsis of sock puppet.
- 7Ellipsis of windsock.
Etymology
From Middle English socke, sokke, sok, from Old English socc (“sock, light shoe, slipper”), a West Germanic borrowing from Latin soccus (“a light shoe or slipper, buskin”), from Ancient Greek σύκχος (súkkhos, “a kind of shoe”), probably from Phrygian or from an Anatolian language. Beekes compares Avestan 𐬵𐬀𐬑𐬀 (haxa, “sole of the foot”). Cognate with Scots sok (“sock, stocking”), West Frisian sok (“sock”), Dutch sok (“sock”), German Socke (“sock”), Danish sok, sokke (“sock”), Swedish sock, socka (“sock”), Icelandic sokkur (“sock”). Doublet of zocco; also related to zoccolo, socle, and zocalo.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osck,scok,socck,sockk,sokc,ssock
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sock
Misspelling Variants of "sock"
Frequency rank: #12,864 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: