stepsister

noun

"stepsister" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“stepsister” is uncommon English (frequency #56,465 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#56,465
frequency rank, English
6,566
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The daughter of one's stepparent by a previous relationship.

Corpus desk

Index EN-stepsister · stepsister · English

stepsister · rank #56,465 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #56,465
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,566
  • PHOTO-FINISH Staggers

Nearest frequency peer: Staggers (-1 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Long-tail ranks near “stepsister”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “stepsister” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for stepsister
PropertyValue
Headwordstepsister
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Frequency rank#56,465
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “stepsister” in English

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right).stepsisterfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

The axis is logarithmic, with each marked tick roughly ten times rarer than the last. Rare peers in the same band: “Staggers” (#56,464), “Steubenville” (#56,466), “Stradivarius” (#56,467). Among 6,566 “S” headwords, “stepsister” is #56,465. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

stepsister is uncommon English at frequency #56,465 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for stepsister, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From step- + sister. The correct English form is stepsister, spelled S-T-E-P-S-I-S-T-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    The daughter of one's stepparent by a previous relationship.
  2. 2
    The stepdaughter of one's parent which is not one's half-sister.

Etymology

From step- + sister.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

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 "stepsister"?
"stepsister" is spelled S-T-E-P-S-I-S-T-E-R.
What does "stepsister" mean?
As a noun, "stepsister" means: The daughter of one's stepparent by a previous relationship.
What is the origin of the word "stepsister"?
From step- + sister. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "stepsister", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list