soldier
/ˈsəʊld͡ʒə/
"soldier" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“soldier” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,262 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,262
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A member of a ground-based army, of any rank, but especially an enlisted member.
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 | soldier |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsəʊld͡ʒə/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #3,262 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “soldier” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for soldier is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsəʊld͡ʒə/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,262 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for soldier, with forms such as "osldier", "slodier", and "sodlier". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "solver", "soldiers", "solder", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English soudeour, from Old French soudier or soudeour (“mercenary”), from Medieval Latin soldarius (“soldier (one having pay)”), from Late Latin solidus, a type of coin. Displaced Old English cempa (whence obsolete kemp). (red herring)… The correct English form is soldier, spelled S-O-L-D-I-E-R.
Definition
- 1A member of a ground-based army, of any rank, but especially an enlisted member.
- 2Any member of a military, regardless of specialty.
- 3An enlisted member of a military service, as distinguished from a commissioned officer.
- 4A guardsman.
- 5A member of the Salvation Army.
- 6A low-ranking gangster or member of a gang, especially the mafia, who engages in physical conflict.
- 7A piece of buttered bread (or toast), cut into a long thin strip for dipping into a soft-boiled egg.
- 8A term of approbation for a young boy.
- 9Someone who fights or toils well.
- 10A red or cuckoo gurnard (Chelidonichthys cuculus).
- 11One of the asexual polymorphic forms of termites, in which the head and jaws are very large and strong. The soldiers serve to defend the nest.
- 12A red herring (cured kipper with flesh turned red).
- 13A xiangqi piece that moves and captures by advancing one point. Once it has crossed the river, it may also move and capture one point horizontally.
- 14A brick, for example in a course of brickwork, that is laid vertically on its shortest end (smallest face), so that its tallest and slimmest face faces the outside of the wall.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English soudeour, from Old French soudier or soudeour (“mercenary”), from Medieval Latin soldarius (“soldier (one having pay)”), from Late Latin solidus, a type of coin. Displaced Old English cempa (whence obsolete kemp). (red herring): An allusion to soldiers' red uniforms; red herring is, reciprocally, a slang term for "soldier".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osldier,slodier,sodlier,solddier,soldeir,soldierr,soldire,solider,solldier,ssoldier
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of soldier - 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
How do you spell "soldier"?
What does "soldier" mean?
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Using “soldier”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-O-L-D-I-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsəʊld͡ʒə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “solver” - see the side-by-side comparison. soldier vs solver
- 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.