spring
/ˈspɹɪŋ/
"spring" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“spring” has 10 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,286. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,286
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To move or burst forth.
Corpus desk
Index EN-spring · spring · English
spring · rank #1,286 · 10 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,286
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 10 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH senior
Nearest frequency peer: senior (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “spring”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- protect
protect
98,718 corpus weight
- secret
secret
98,717 corpus weight
- senior
senior
98,716 corpus weight
- spring
spring
98,715 corpus weight
- Sunday
Sunday
98,714 corpus weight
- telling
telling
98,713 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “spring” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | spring |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈspɹɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,286 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “spring” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 10 spelling variants around spring (IPA /ˈspɹɪŋ/), averb. Corpus frequency is #1,286 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 38 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for spring, with forms such as "psring", "spirng", and "sppring". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "swing", "sting", "suing", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English springen, from Old English springan (“to spring, leap, bounce, sprout forth, emerge, spread out”), from Proto-West Germanic *springan, from Proto-Germanic *springaną (“to burst forth”), from Proto-Indo-European *spre(n)ǵʰ- (“to move, rac… The correct English form is spring, spelled S-P-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1To move or burst forth.
- 2To move or burst forth.
- 3To move or burst forth.
- 4To move or burst forth.
- 5To move or burst forth.
- 6To move or burst forth.
- 7To move or burst forth.
- 8To move or burst forth.
- 9To move or burst forth.
- 10To cause to spring (all senses).
- 11To cause to spring (all senses).
- 12To leap over.
- 13To breed with, to impregnate.
- 14To wet, to moisten.
- 15To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
- 16To go off.
- 17To crack.
- 18To come upon and flush out.
- 19To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
- 20To begin.
- 21To put bad money into circulation.
- 22To tell, to share.
- 23To free from imprisonment, especially by facilitating an illegal escape.
- 24To be free of imprisonment, especially by illegal escape.
- 25To build, to form the initial curve of.
- 26To extend, to curve.
- 27To turn a vessel using a spring attached to its anchor cable.
- 28To pay or spend a certain sum, to yield.
- 29To raise an offered price.
- 30Alternative form of sprain.
- 31Alternative form of strain.
- 32To act as a spring: to strongly rebound.
- 33To equip with springs, especially (of vehicles) to equip with a suspension.
- 34to inspire, to motivate.
- 35To deform owing to excessive pressure, to become warped; to intentionally deform in order to position and then straighten in place.
- 36To swell with milk or pregnancy.
- 37To sound, to play.
- 38To find or get enough food during springtime.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how spring appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The boat sprang a leak and began to sink.
...þe wound þat was springand with huge stremes of blude...
Etymology
From Middle English springen, from Old English springan (“to spring, leap, bounce, sprout forth, emerge, spread out”), from Proto-West Germanic *springan, from Proto-Germanic *springaną (“to burst forth”), from Proto-Indo-European *spre(n)ǵʰ- (“to move, race, spring”), from *sper- (“to jerk, twitch, snap, shove”). Cognates * Saterland Frisian springe * West Frisian springe * Dutch springen * German Low German springen * German springen * Danish springe * Swedish springa * Norwegian springe * Faroese springa * Icelandic springa (“to burst, explode”). Other possible cognates include Lithuanian spreñgti (“to push (in)”), Old Church Slavonic прѧсти (pręsti, “to spin, to stretch”), Latin spargere (“to sprinkle, to scatter”), Ancient Greek σπέρχω (spérkhō, “to hasten”), Sanskrit स्पृहयति (spṛháyati, “to be eager”). Some newer senses derived from the noun.
Synonyms
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- psring
- spirng
- sppring
- sprign
- springg
- sprinng
- sprnig
- sprring
- srping
- sspring
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of spring - 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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "spring", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "spring". Here's where to go from here.
- "spring" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "swing". View pair
- 10 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #1,286 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.