sortie
/ˈsɔːti/
"sortie" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sortie” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #46,787 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #46,787
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.
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 | sortie |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɔːti/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #46,787 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sortie” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sortie is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɔːti/. Corpus data places it at rank #46,787 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for sortie, with forms such as "osrtie", "sorite", and "sorrtie". 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, "sorts", "sort", "sore", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *upó The noun is borrowed from French sortie (“act of exiting; exit, way out; (military) sally, sortie”), the feminine past participle of sortir (“to exit, go out”), from Old French sortir, from Latin sortīrī, the present active infinitive of sort… The correct English form is sortie, spelled S-O-R-T-I-E.
Definition
- 1An attack made by troops from a besieged position; a sally.
- 2An operational flight carried out by a single military aircraft.
- 3An act of venturing out to do a task, etc.
- 4An act of trying to enter a new field of activity.
- 5An attacking move.
- 6An operational flight carried out by a spacecraft involving a return to Earth.
- 7Synonym of sally port (“an entry to or opening into a fortification to enable a sally”).
- 8A series of aerial photographs taken during the flight of an aircraft; (by extension) a photography session.
Etymology
PIE word *upó The noun is borrowed from French sortie (“act of exiting; exit, way out; (military) sally, sortie”), the feminine past participle of sortir (“to exit, go out”), from Old French sortir, from Latin sortīrī, the present active infinitive of sortior (“to cast or draw lots; to choose, select; to distribute, divide; to obtain, receive; to share”), from sors (“something used to determine chances, a lot; casting or drawing of lots; decision by lot; a share”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; a thread”)), possibly influenced by surrēctus (“arisen, having been caused to arise; gotten up, having been gotten up”), the perfect passive participle of surgō (“to arise, get up, rise”), from subrigō (“to lift up; to straighten”), from sub- (prefix meaning ‘beneath, under’) + regō (“to direct, guide, steer; to govern, rule; to manage, oversee”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to right oneself, straighten; just; right”)). The verb is derived from the noun.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osrtie,sorite,sorrtie,sortei,sorttie,sotrie,srotie,ssortie
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sortie - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “sortie”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-O-R-T-I-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɔːti/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sorts” - see the side-by-side comparison. sortie vs sorts
- 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.