spoon
/spuːn/
"spoon" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“spoon” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,611 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,611
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle.
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 | spoon |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /spuːn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #8,611 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “spoon” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spoon is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /spuːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,611 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 11 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 spoon, with forms such as "psoon", "sopon", and "spon". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "spot", "spun", "sport", 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 spoon, spoune, spone, spon (“spoon, chip of wood”), from Old English spōn (“sliver, chip of wood, shaving”), from Proto-West Germanic *spānu, from Proto-Germanic *spēnuz (“chip, flake, shaving”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peH- (“chip,… The correct English form is spoon, spelled S-P-O-O-N.
Definition
- 1An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle.
- 2An implement for stirring food while being prepared; a wooden spoon.
- 3A measure that will fit into a spoon; a spoonful.
- 4A wooden-headed golf club with moderate loft, similar to the modern fairway wood.
- 5An oar.
- 6A type of metal lure resembling the concave head of a tablespoon.
- 7A spoon excavator.
- 8A South African shrub of the genus Spatalla.
- 9A simpleton, a spoony.
- 10A safety handle on a hand grenade, a trigger.
- 11A metaphoric unit of finite physical and mental energy available for daily activities, especially in the context of living with chronic illness or disability.
Etymology
From Middle English spoon, spoune, spone, spon (“spoon, chip of wood”), from Old English spōn (“sliver, chip of wood, shaving”), from Proto-West Germanic *spānu, from Proto-Germanic *spēnuz (“chip, flake, shaving”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peH- (“chip, shaving, log, length of wood”). Cognate with Scots spun, spon (“spoon, shingle”), West Frisian spoen (“chip”), Dutch spaan (“chip, flinders”), German Span (“chip, flake, shaving”), Swedish spån (“chip, flake”), Norwegian Nynorsk spon (“chip, spoon”), Faroese spónur (“wood chip; spoon”), Ancient Greek σφήν (sphḗn, “wedge”)(though the connection to the Greek is likely impossible by modern reconstructions of PIE). Eclipsed non-native Middle English cuculer, coclear (“spoon”), from Old English cuculer, cuceler, cucler, borrowed from Latin cochlear (“spoon”). The "metaphoric unit of personal energy" sense was coined by writer and disability advocate Christine Miserandino in 2003 (see spoon theory).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psoon,sopon,spon,spono,spoonn,sppoon,sspoon
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of spoon - 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 “spoon”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-O-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /spuːn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “spot” - see the side-by-side comparison. spoon vs spot
- 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.