soil
/sɔɪl/
"soil" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“soil” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,527 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,527
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth.
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 | soil |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɔɪl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #3,527 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “soil” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for soil is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɔɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,527 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 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 soil, with forms such as "osil", "siol", and "soill". 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, "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 soile, soyle, sule (“ground, earth”), partly from Anglo-Norman soyl (“bottom, ground, pavement”), from Latin solium (“seat, chair; throne”), mistaken for Latin solum (“ground, foundation, earth, sole of the foot”); and partly from Old En… The correct English form is soil, spelled S-O-I-L.
Definition
- 1A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth.
- 2The unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants.
- 3The unconsolidated mineral or organic matter on the surface of the earth that has been subjected to and shows effects of genetic and environmental factors of: climate (including water and temperature effects), and macro- and microorganisms, conditioned by relief, acting on parent material over a period of time. A product-soil differs from the material from which it is derived in many physical, chemical, biological, and morphological properties and characteristics.
- 4Country or territory.
- 5That which soils or pollutes; a stain.
- 6A marshy or miry place to which a hunted boar resorts for refuge; hence, a wet place, stream, or tract of water, sought for by other game, as deer.
- 7Dung; compost; manure.
Etymology
From Middle English soile, soyle, sule (“ground, earth”), partly from Anglo-Norman soyl (“bottom, ground, pavement”), from Latin solium (“seat, chair; throne”), mistaken for Latin solum (“ground, foundation, earth, sole of the foot”); and partly from Old English sol (“mud, mire, wet sand”), from Proto-Germanic *sulą (“mud, spot”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid”). Cognate with Middle Low German söle (“dirt, mud”), Middle Dutch sol (“dirt, filth”), Middle High German sol, söl (“dirt, mud, mire”), Danish søle (“mud, muck”). Compare French seuil (“level; threshold”) and sol (“soil, earth; ground”). See also sole, soal, solum. For the sole and soil relation, compare typologically Russian по́чва (póčva) akin to подо́шва (podóšva).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osil,siol,soill,soli,ssoil
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of soil - 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 “soil”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-O-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɔɪl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “son” - see the side-by-side comparison. soil vs son
- 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.