squash
/skwɒʃ/
"squash" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“squash” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,506 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,506
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.
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 | squash |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skwɒʃ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #12,506 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “squash” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for squash is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skwɒʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,506 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for squash, with forms such as "qsuash", "sqaush", and "sqquash". 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 15 confusable-pair relationships, "stash", "squat", "squaw", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English squachen, squatchen, from Old French esquacher, escachier, from Vulgar Latin *excoāctiāre, from Latin ex + coāctāre. Probably influenced by Middle English quashen, quassen, from Old French esquasser, escasser (“to crush, shatter, destroy… The correct English form is squash, spelled S-Q-U-A-S-H.
Definition
- 1A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.
- 2A non-alcoholic drink made from a fruit-based concentrate diluted with water or milk.
- 3A place or a situation where people have limited space to move.
- 4A preparation made by placing material on a slide (flat, rectangular piece of glass), covering it and applying pressure.
- 5Something soft and easily crushed; especially, an unripe pod of peas.
- 6Something unripe or soft.
- 7A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body; also, a shock of soft bodies.
- 8An extremely one-sided, usually short, match.
Etymology
From Middle English squachen, squatchen, from Old French esquacher, escachier, from Vulgar Latin *excoāctiāre, from Latin ex + coāctāre. Probably influenced by Middle English quashen, quassen, from Old French esquasser, escasser (“to crush, shatter, destroy, break”), from Vulgar Latin *exquassare, from Latin ex- + quassare (“to shatter”) (see quash).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: qsuash,sqaush,sqquash,squahs,squashh,squassh,squsah,ssquash,suqash
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of squash - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “squash”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-Q-U-A-S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skwɒʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “stash” - see the side-by-side comparison. squash vs stash
- 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.