sprit
/spɹɪt/
"sprit" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sprit” is uncommon English (frequency #92,101 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #92,101
- frequency rank, English
- 54,294
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A spar between mast and upper outer corner of a spritsail on sailing boats.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sprit |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /spɹɪt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #92,101 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sprit” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
sprit is uncommon English at frequency #92,101 among 54,294 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /spɹɪt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for sprit, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sprete, from Old English sprēot (“pole, pike, spear”), from Proto-Germanic *spreut, related to Proto-West Germanic *sprutō (“shoot, sprout”). Cognate with West Frisian spriet (“sprit, spoke”), Dutch spriet (“a sprit, blade, spar, shoot, … The correct English form is sprit, spelled S-P-R-I-T.
Definition
- 1A spar between mast and upper outer corner of a spritsail on sailing boats.
- 2A shoot; a sprout.
Etymology
From Middle English sprete, from Old English sprēot (“pole, pike, spear”), from Proto-Germanic *spreut, related to Proto-West Germanic *sprutō (“shoot, sprout”). Cognate with West Frisian spriet (“sprit, spoke”), Dutch spriet (“a sprit, blade, spar, shoot, sprig”), Middle High German spriez (“sprout, twig”).
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 “sprit”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-R-I-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /spɹɪt/ (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
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.