stress
/stɹɛs/
"stress" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“stress” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,923. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,923
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 18
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.
Corpus desk
Index EN-stress · stress · English
stress · rank #1,923 · 8 variants · 18 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,923
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 18 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH steps
Nearest frequency peer: steps (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “stress”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Spanish
Spanish
98,081 corpus weight
- sport
sport
98,080 corpus weight
- steps
steps
98,079 corpus weight
- stress
stress
98,078 corpus weight
- taste
taste
98,077 corpus weight
- tea
tea
98,076 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “stress” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | stress |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /stɹɛs/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,923 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 18 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “stress” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around stress (IPA /stɹɛs/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #1,923 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 10 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for stress, with forms such as "srtess", "sstress", and "sterss". 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 18 confusable-pair relationships, "strips", "strewn", "stressed", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From a shortening of Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French destrecier, from Latin distringō (“to stretch out”). This form probably coalesced with Middle English stresse, from Old French estrece (“narrowness”), from Vulgar Latin *strictia, from … The correct English form is stress, spelled S-T-R-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.
- 2Aggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions.
- 3The internal distribution of force across a small boundary per unit area of that boundary (pressure) within a body. It causes strain or deformation and is typically symbolised by σ or τ.
- 4Force externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body.
- 5Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.
- 6A suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound, word or word group by means of of loudness, duration or pitch; phonological prominence.
- 7The suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound by means of loudness and/or duration; phonological prominence phonetically achieved by means of dynamics as distinct from pitch.
- 8Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written).
- 9Obsolete form of distress.
- 10distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how stress appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Go easy on him, he's been under a lot of stress lately.
Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping describes psychological stress as “a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p.19). According to these authors, the essence of inducing stress i…
Etymology
From a shortening of Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French destrecier, from Latin distringō (“to stretch out”). This form probably coalesced with Middle English stresse, from Old French estrece (“narrowness”), from Vulgar Latin *strictia, from Latin strictus (“narrow”). In the sense of "mental strain" or “disruption”, used occasionally in the 1920s and 1930s by psychologists, including Walter Cannon (1934); in “biological threat”, used by endocrinologist Hans Selye, by metaphor with stress in physics (force on an object) in the 1930s, and popularized by same in the 1950s.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- srtess
- sstress
- sterss
- stres
- strress
- strses
- sttress
- tsress
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of stress - 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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "stress", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "stress". Here's where to go from here.
- "stress" maps to 18 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "strips". View pair
- 8 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #1,923 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.