speed
/spiːd/
"speed" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“speed” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,099 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,099
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The state of moving quickly or the capacity for rapid motion.
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 | speed |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /spiːd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,099 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “speed” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for speed is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /spiːd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,099 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for speed, with forms such as "pseed", "seped", and "spede". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "sued", "spew", "spud", 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 sped (“prosperity, good luck, quickness, success”), from Old English spēd (“success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōdi (“prosperity, success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōan, from Proto-Germanic *spōaną (“to prosper, succeed, be happy”… The correct English form is speed, spelled S-P-E-E-D.
Definition
- 1The state of moving quickly or the capacity for rapid motion.
- 2The rate of motion or action, specifically the magnitude of the velocity; the rate distance is traversed in a given time.
- 3The sensitivity to light of film, plates or sensor.
- 4The duration of exposure, the time during which a camera shutter is open (shutter speed).
- 5The largest size of the lens opening at which a lens can be used.
- 6The ratio of the focal length to the diameter of a photographic objective.
- 7Amphetamine or any amphetamine-based drug (especially methamphetamine) used as a stimulant, especially illegally.
- 8Luck, success, prosperity.
- 9Personal preference.
- 10A third-order measure of derivative price sensitivity, expressed as the rate of change of gamma with respect to changes in the underlying asset price.
Etymology
From Middle English sped (“prosperity, good luck, quickness, success”), from Old English spēd (“success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōdi (“prosperity, success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōan, from Proto-Germanic *spōaną (“to prosper, succeed, be happy”), from Proto-Indo-European *speh₁- (“to prosper, turn out well”). Cognate with Scots spede, speid (“success, quickness, speed”), Dutch spoed (“haste; speed”), German Low German Spood (“haste; speed; eagerness; success”), German Sput (“progress, acceleration, haste”). Related also to Old English spōwan (“to be successful, succeed”), Albanian shpejt (“to speed, to hurry”) and Russian спеши́ть (spešítʹ, “to hurry”), Latin spēs (“hope, expectation”), spērō (“hope”, verb), perhaps also to Ancient Greek σπεύδω (speúdō, “to urge on, hasten, press on”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: pseed,seped,spede,speedd,sppeed,sspeed
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of speed - 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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Using “speed”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-E-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /spiːd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sued” - see the side-by-side comparison. speed vs sued
- 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.