sportsman
"sportsman" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sportsman” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #23,685 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #23,685
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A man who engages in sports; an athlete.
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 | sportsman |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #23,685 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sportsman” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sportsman is 9 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #23,685 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for sportsman, with forms such as "psortsman", "soprtsman", and "sporrtsman". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "swordsman", "Scotsman", "spokesman", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From sports + -man. The correct English form is sportsman, spelled S-P-O-R-T-S-M-A-N.
Definition
- 1A man who engages in sports; an athlete.
- 2A man who engages in country sports, such as hunting or fishing.
- 3A man who exhibits good sportsmanship, or who exhibits sportsmanship as specified (good or bad).
Etymology
From sports + -man.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psortsman,soprtsman,sporrtsman,sporstman,sportmsan,sportsamn,sportsmann,sportsmman,sportsmna,sportssman,sporttsman,spotrsman,spportsman,sprotsman,ssportsman
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sportsman - 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
How do you spell "sportsman"?
What does "sportsman" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "sportsman"?
What is the origin of the word "sportsman"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “sportsman”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-O-R-T-S-M-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “swordsman” - see the side-by-side comparison. sportsman vs swordsman
- 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.