spay
/speɪ/
"spay" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“spay” is uncommon English (frequency #57,728 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,728
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To destroy or remove the ovaries or uterus (of a female animal) to prevent pregnancy.
Corpus desk
Index EN-spay · spay · English
spay · rank #57,728 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #57,728
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH spacewalk
Nearest frequency peer: spacewalk (-1 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.
Long-tail ranks near “spay”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- soonest
soonest
42,278 corpus weight
- soundproof
soundproof
42,276 corpus weight
- spacewalk
spacewalk
42,274 corpus weight
- spay
spay
42,273 corpus weight
- sprig
sprig
42,271 corpus weight
- Steuben
Steuben
42,266 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “spay” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spay |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /speɪ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #57,728 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “spay” in English
Rare enough to double-check
spay is uncommon English at frequency #57,728 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /speɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To destroy or remove the ovaries or uterus (of a female animal) to prevent pregnancy.".
spay has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English spayen, spaien, from the Anglo-Norman espeier, equivalent to the Old French espeer (“to cut with a sword”), from espee (“sword”), whence the Modern French épée. The correct English form is spay, spelled S-P-A-Y.
Definition
- 1To destroy or remove the ovaries or uterus (of a female animal) to prevent pregnancy.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how spay appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We’re having our cat spayed as we don’t want her having kittens.
With their eye on non-island countries, namely America, the authors of Cat Wars argue for a combination of spay/neuter programs, enclosed sanctuaries, and euthanasia.
Etymology
From Middle English spayen, spaien, from the Anglo-Norman espeier, equivalent to the Old French espeer (“to cut with a sword”), from espee (“sword”), whence the Modern French épée.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "spay", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).