somersault
/ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/
"somersault" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“somersault” is uncommon English (frequency #54,498 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,498
- frequency rank, English
- 54,294
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | somersault |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #54,498 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “somersault” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
somersault is uncommon English at frequency #54,498 among 54,294 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head.".
Zero misspellings are on record for somersault in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French sombresault (now obsolete, compare French sursaut, soubresaut), from Old Occitan sobresalt, from sobre- (“over, above”) + salt (“jump”), from Latin suprā (“over”) + saltus (“jump”). Doublet of soubresaut. Cognate with Spanish sobresaltar (“to sp… The correct English form is somersault, spelled S-O-M-E-R-S-A-U-L-T.
Definition
- 1Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head.
Etymology
From French sombresault (now obsolete, compare French sursaut, soubresaut), from Old Occitan sobresalt, from sobre- (“over, above”) + salt (“jump”), from Latin suprā (“over”) + saltus (“jump”). Doublet of soubresaut. Cognate with Spanish sobresaltar (“to spook, startle”) and Portuguese sobressaltar (“to spook, scare, jump over”).
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); 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 “somersault”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-O-M-E-R-S-A-U-L-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.