soft drink

noun

"soft-drink" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“soft drink” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any non-alcoholic drink that is carbonated, and usually also sweet. (In this sense, juice, milk, tea and coffee are not soft drinks.)

Corpus desk

Index EN-soft-drink · soft drink · English

soft drink · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for soft drink
PropertyValue
Headwordsoft drink
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “soft drink” in English

soft drinkranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

soft drink is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for soft drink, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

Etymologically, the entry records: So called in contrast to strong alcoholic beverages, which are "hard liquors". The correct English form is soft drink, spelled S-O-F-T- -D-R-I-N-K.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any non-alcoholic drink that is carbonated, and usually also sweet. (In this sense, juice, milk, tea and coffee are not soft drinks.)
  2. 2
    Any non-alcoholic drink.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how soft drink appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. "And then they run to him with whisky, and so they teach him to rely on the bottle and you get another case of a drunken medium. I know them. You keep off it, Tom!" "Yes, one of our trade should stick to soft drinks."

Etymology

So called in contrast to strong alcoholic beverages, which are "hard liquors".

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "soft drink"?
"soft drink" is spelled S-O-F-T- -D-R-I-N-K.
What does "soft drink" mean?
As a noun, "soft drink" means: Any non-alcoholic drink that is carbonated, and usually also sweet. (In this sense, juice, milk, tea and coffee are not soft drinks.)
What is the origin of the word "soft drink"?
So called in contrast to strong alcoholic beverages, which are "hard liquors". See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list