soothe
/suːð/
"soothe" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“soothe” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #23,109. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #23,109
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To restore to ease, comfort, or tranquility; relieve; calm; quiet; refresh.
Corpus desk
Index EN-soothe · soothe · English
soothe · rank #23,109 · 8 variants · 10 confusables
- FREQ-MID #23,109
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 10 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH sobs
Nearest frequency peer: sobs (-2 rank slots)
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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “soothe”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- slur
slur
76,896 corpus weight
- snowball
snowball
76,895 corpus weight
- sobs
sobs
76,894 corpus weight
- soothe
soothe
76,892 corpus weight
- spelt
spelt
76,890 corpus weight
- stalling
stalling
76,889 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “soothe” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | soothe |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /suːð/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #23,109 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “soothe” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around soothe (IPA /suːð/), averb. Corpus frequency is #23,109 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 11 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for soothe, with forms such as "osothe", "soohte", and "sooteh". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 10 confusable-pair relationships, "south", "sortie", "soot", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sothen (“to verify, prove the validity of”), from Old English sōþian (“to verify, prove, confirm, bear witness to”), from Proto-West Germanic *sanþōn, from Proto-Germanic *sanþōną (“to prove, certify, acknowledge, testify”), from Proto-I… The correct English form is soothe, spelled S-O-O-T-H-E.
Definition
- 1To restore to ease, comfort, or tranquility; relieve; calm; quiet; refresh.
- 2To allay; assuage; mitigate; soften.
- 3To smooth over; render less obnoxious.
- 4To calm or placate someone or some situation.
- 5To ease or relieve pain or suffering.
- 6To temporise by assent, concession, flattery, or cajolery.
- 7To bring comfort or relief.
- 8To keep in good humour; wheedle; cajole; flatter.
- 9To prove true; verify; confirm as true.
- 10To confirm the statements of; maintain the truthfulness of (a person); bear out.
- 11To assent to; yield to; humour by agreement or concession.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how soothe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Muſick has Charms to ſooth a ſavage Breaſt, To ſoften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
Yet Wayne Rooney scored at a good time, three minutes after the restart, to soothe any gathering nerves and the night can ultimately be chalked off as one of the finest occasions of Hodgson's 17 months in the job.
Etymology
From Middle English sothen (“to verify, prove the validity of”), from Old English sōþian (“to verify, prove, confirm, bear witness to”), from Proto-West Germanic *sanþōn, from Proto-Germanic *sanþōną (“to prove, certify, acknowledge, testify”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- (“to be”). Cognate with Danish sande (“to verify”), Swedish sanna (“to verify”), Icelandic sanna (“to verify”). See also sooth. Displaced native Old English frēfran, ġefrēfran (“to comfort, console, soothe”), and partially displaced native Old English stillan, ġestillan (“to calm, become calm, pacify, quieten”) (whence modern still). The semantic evolution of "to verify, prove the validity of" → "to comfort" (first attested in the late 17th century) comes from the notion of assuaging someone by supporting the truth of what they say.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- osothe
- soohte
- sooteh
- soothhe
- sootthe
- sothe
- sotohe
- ssoothe
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of soothe - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "soothe", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "soothe". Here's where to go from here.
- "soothe" maps to 10 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "south". View pair
- 8 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #23,109 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.