stool
/stuːl/
"stool" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“stool” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #14,641 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #14,641
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
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 | stool |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /stuːl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #14,641 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “stool” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for stool is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /stuːl/. Corpus data places it at rank #14,641 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 12 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 stool, with forms such as "sotol", "sstool", and "stol". 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, "stop", "stow", "story", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English stool, stole, stol, from Old English stōl (“chair, seat, throne”), from Proto-West Germanic *stōl, from Proto-Germanic *stōlaz (“chair”) (compare West Frisian stoel, Dutch stoel, German Stuhl, Swedish/Norwegian/Danish stol, Finnish tuoli… The correct English form is stool, spelled S-T-O-O-L.
Definition
- 1A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
- 2A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
- 3A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
- 4A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
- 5A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
- 6A close-stool; a seat used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot, commode, outhouse seat, or toilet.
- 7A plant that has been cut down until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.
- 8Feces, excrement.
- 9A production of feces or excrement, an act of defecation, stooling.
- 10A decoy; a portable piece of wood to which a pigeon is fastened to lure wild birds.
- 11A small channel on the side of a vessel, for the deadeyes of the backstays.
- 12Material, such as oyster shells, spread on the sea bottom for oyster spat to adhere to.
Etymology
From Middle English stool, stole, stol, from Old English stōl (“chair, seat, throne”), from Proto-West Germanic *stōl, from Proto-Germanic *stōlaz (“chair”) (compare West Frisian stoel, Dutch stoel, German Stuhl, Swedish/Norwegian/Danish stol, Finnish tuoli, Estonian tool), from Proto-Indo-European *stoh₂los (compare Lithuanian stálas, Russian стол (stol, “table”), Russian стул (stul, “chair”), Serbo-Croatian stol (“table”), Slovene stol (“chair”), Albanian kështallë (“crutch”), Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “block of stone used as a prop or buttress to a wall”)), from *steh₂- (“to stand”). More at stand. The medical use derives from sense 2 (seat used for defecation).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sotol,sstool,stol,stolo,stooll,sttool,tsool
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of stool - 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
How do you spell "stool"?
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Using “stool”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-T-O-O-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /stuːl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “stop” - see the side-by-side comparison. stool vs stop
- 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.