stake
/steɪk/
"stake" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“stake” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,631 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,631
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
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 | stake |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /steɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,631 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “stake” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for stake is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /steɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,631 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for stake, with forms such as "satke", "sstake", and "staek". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "stay", "star", "stan", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English stake, from Old English staca (“pin, tack, stake”), from Proto-West Germanic *stakō, from Proto-Germanic *stakô (“stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *stog-, *steg- (“stake”). Cognate with Scots stak, staik, Saterland Frisian Stak, West Fr… The correct English form is stake, spelled S-T-A-K-E.
Definition
- 1A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
- 2A piece of wood driven in the ground, placed in the middle of the court, that is used as the finishing point after scoring 12 hoops in croquet.
- 3A stick or similar object (e.g., steel channel or angle stock) inserted upright in a lop, eye, or mortise, at the side or end of a cart, flat car, flatbed trailer, or the like, to prevent goods from falling off; often connected in a grid forming a stakebody.
- 4The piece of timber to which a person condemned to death was affixed to be burned.
- 5A share or interest in a business or a given situation.
- 6That which is laid down as a wager; that which is staked or hazarded; a pledge.
- 7A small anvil usually furnished with a tang to enter a hole in a bench top, as used by tinsmiths, blacksmiths, etc., for light work, punching hole in or cutting a work piece, or for specific forming techniques etc.
- 8A territorial division comprising all the Mormons (typically several thousand) in a geographical area.
Etymology
From Middle English stake, from Old English staca (“pin, tack, stake”), from Proto-West Germanic *stakō, from Proto-Germanic *stakô (“stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *stog-, *steg- (“stake”). Cognate with Scots stak, staik, Saterland Frisian Stak, West Frisian staak, Dutch staak, Low German Stake, Norwegian stake, Spanish estaca.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: satke,sstake,staek,stakke,stkae,sttake,tsake
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of stake - 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
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Using “stake”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-T-A-K-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /steɪk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “stay” - see the side-by-side comparison. stake vs stay
- 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.