spoor
/spʊə/
"spoor" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“spoor” is an uncommon English word, ranked #84,772 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #84,772
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The track, trail, droppings, or scent of an animal.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spoor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /spʊə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #84,772 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “spoor” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spoor is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /spʊə/. Corpus data places it at rank #84,772 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The track, trail, droppings, or scent of an animal.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for spoor, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Early 19th century, from Afrikaans spoor, from Dutch spoor (“track”). Akin to Old English and Old Norse spor (whence Danish spor), and German Spur, all from Proto-Germanic *spurą. Compare spurn. The correct English form is spoor, spelled S-P-O-O-R.
Definition
- 1The track, trail, droppings, or scent of an animal.
Etymology
Early 19th century, from Afrikaans spoor, from Dutch spoor (“track”). Akin to Old English and Old Norse spor (whence Danish spor), and German Spur, all from Proto-Germanic *spurą. Compare spurn.
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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Using “spoor”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-O-O-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /spʊə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.