stepsister

noun

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

The verdict

“stepsister” is uncommon English (frequency #56,465 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#56,465
frequency rank, English
54,294
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The daughter of one's stepparent by a previous relationship.

Key facts for stepsister
PropertyValue
Headwordstepsister
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Frequency rank#56,465
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “stepsister” sits in English frequency

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

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

stepsister is uncommon English at frequency #56,465 among 54,294 “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.

Using “stepsister”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is S-T-E-P-S-I-S-T-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words

Other uncommon English words near this rank

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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list