stain
/steɪn/
"stain" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“stain” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,298 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #11,298
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A discolored spot or area caused by spillage or other contact with certain fluids or substances.
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 | stain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /steɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #11,298 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “stain” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for stain is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /steɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,298 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for stain, with forms such as "sstain", "stainn", and "stani". 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, "STI", "stay", "star", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English steinen, steynen (“to stain, colour, paint”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse steina (“to stain, colour, paint”), from steinn (“stone, mineral blue, colour, stain”), from Proto-Norse ᛊᛏᚨᛁᚾᚨᛉ (stainaʀ), from Proto-Germanic *stain… The correct English form is stain, spelled S-T-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1A discolored spot or area caused by spillage or other contact with certain fluids or substances.
- 2A blemish on one's character or reputation.
- 3A substance used to soak into a surface and colour it.
- 4A reagent or dye used to stain microscope specimens so as to make some structures visible.
- 5One of a number of non-standard tinctures used chiefly in post-medieval heraldry, especially tenné, murrey, or sanguine.
Etymology
From Middle English steinen, steynen (“to stain, colour, paint”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse steina (“to stain, colour, paint”), from steinn (“stone, mineral blue, colour, stain”), from Proto-Norse ᛊᛏᚨᛁᚾᚨᛉ (stainaʀ), from Proto-Germanic *stainaz (“stone”), from Proto-Indo-European *steyh₂- (“to stiffen”). Cognate with Old English stān (“stone”). More at stone. Replaced native Middle English wem (“spot, blemish, stain”), from Old English wamm (“spot, stain”). In some senses, influenced by unrelated Middle English disteynen (“to discolor, remove the colour from"; literally, "de-colour”), from Anglo-Norman desteindre (“to remove the colour from, bleach”), from Old French destaindre (“to remove the color from, bleach”), from des- (“dis-, de-, un-”) + teindre (“to dye”), from Latin tingo.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sstain,stainn,stani,stian,sttain,tsain
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of stain - 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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Using “stain”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-T-A-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /steɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “STI” - see the side-by-side comparison. stain vs STI
- 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.