Spain
/speɪn/
"spain" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Spain” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,560 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #2,560
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A country in Southern Europe, including most of the Iberian peninsula. Official name: Kingdom of Spain. Capital and largest city: Madrid.
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 | Spain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /speɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,560 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Spain” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Spain is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /speɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,560 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for Spain, with forms such as "psain", "sapin", and "spainn". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "spin", "span", "stan", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Latin Hispānia Old French Espaignebor. Middle English Spayne English Spain From Middle English Spayne, from Anglo-Norman Espayne, from Late Latin Spania, from earlier Latin Hispānia. Displaced Old English Ispania, which was borrowed directly … The correct English form is Spain, spelled S-P-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1A country in Southern Europe, including most of the Iberian peninsula. Official name: Kingdom of Spain. Capital and largest city: Madrid.
- 2An English ethnic surname transferred from the nickname for someone with Spanish ancestry.
Etymology
Etymology tree Latin Hispānia Old French Espaignebor. Middle English Spayne English Spain From Middle English Spayne, from Anglo-Norman Espayne, from Late Latin Spania, from earlier Latin Hispānia. Displaced Old English Ispania, which was borrowed directly from Latin. Doublet of Hispania.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psain,sapin,spainn,spani,spian,sppain,sspain
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Spain - 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 “Spain”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-A-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /speɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “spin” - see the side-by-side comparison. Spain vs spin
- 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.