spurt
/spɜːt/
"spurt" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“spurt” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #35,532 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #35,532
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To cause to gush out suddenly or violently in a stream or jet.
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 | spurt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /spɜːt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #35,532 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “spurt” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spurt is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /spɜːt/. Corpus data places it at rank #35,532 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for spurt, with forms such as "psurt", "sppurt", and "sprut". 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, "sure", "suit", "surf", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From earlier spirt, sprit (“to sprout”), from Middle English sprytten, from Old English spryttan, from Proto-West Germanic *spruttjan, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)per- (“to strew, sow, sprinkle”). The correct English form is spurt, spelled S-P-U-R-T.
Definition
- 1To cause to gush out suddenly or violently in a stream or jet.
- 2To rush from a confined place in a small stream or jet.
Etymology
From earlier spirt, sprit (“to sprout”), from Middle English sprytten, from Old English spryttan, from Proto-West Germanic *spruttjan, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)per- (“to strew, sow, sprinkle”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psurt,sppurt,sprut,spurrt,spurtt,sputr,sspurt,suprt
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of spurt - 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
How do you spell "spurt"?
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Using “spurt”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-U-R-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /spɜːt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sure” - see the side-by-side comparison. spurt vs sure
- 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.