submissive
/səbˈmɪsɪv/
"submissive" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“submissive” has 13 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #21,083. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #21,083
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Meekly obedient or passive; obsequious.
Corpus desk
Index EN-submissive · submissive · English
submissive · rank #21,083 · 13 variants · 1 confusable
- FREQ-MID #21,083
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 1 pairs
- VAR-HIGH 13 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH studded
Nearest frequency peer: studded (-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 “submissive”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- strata
strata
78,921 corpus weight
- studded
studded
78,919 corpus weight
- submissive
submissive
78,918 corpus weight
- subsection
subsection
78,917 corpus weight
- suede
suede
78,916 corpus weight
- summertime
summertime
78,915 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “submissive” 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 | submissive |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /səbˈmɪsɪv/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #21,083 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “submissive” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 13 spelling variants around submissive (IPA /səbˈmɪsɪv/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #21,083 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Meekly obedient or passive; obsequious.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for submissive, with forms such as "sbumissive", "ssubmissive", and "subbmissive". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "submission", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is submissive, spelled S-U-B-M-I-S-S-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1Meekly obedient or passive; obsequious.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how submissive appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The powerful managers for government were not sufficiently submissive to the pleasure of the possessors of immediate and personal favour, sometimes from a confidence in their own strength natural and acquired; sometimes from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the country, which gave them a consideration independent of the court.
If the human being who answers these tendencies assumes a submissive behavior, in essence a lowering of head and shoulders, wavering glance, absence of all preparations for attack, general weakening of muscle tonus, and hesitancy in movement, the movements of attempt at mastery become modified into attempts at the more obvious swagger, strut and glare of…
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- sbumissive
- ssubmissive
- subbmissive
- subimssive
- submisisve
- submisive
- submissiev
- submissivve
- submissvie
- submmissive
- submsisive
- sumbissive
- usbmissive
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of submissive - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "submissive", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (13 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "submissive". Here's where to go from here.
- This headword has one recorded confusable pair with "submission". View pair
- 13 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #21,083 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.