successful
/səkˈsɛs.fəl/
"successful" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“successful” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,238 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #1,238
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Resulting in success; assuring or promoting success; accomplishing what was proposed; having the desired effect.
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 | successful |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /səkˈsɛs.fəl/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #1,238 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “successful” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for successful is 10 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səkˈsɛs.fəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,238 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Resulting in success; assuring or promoting success; accomplishing what was proposed; having the desired effect.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for successful, with forms such as "scucessful", "ssuccessful", and "succesfsul". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "successfully", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From success + -ful. The correct English form is successful, spelled S-U-C-C-E-S-S-F-U-L.
Definition
- 1Resulting in success; assuring or promoting success; accomplishing what was proposed; having the desired effect.
Etymology
From success + -ful.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: scucessful,ssuccessful,succesfsul,succesful,successfful,successflu,successfull,successufl,succsesful,sucecssful,sucessful,usccessful
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of successful - 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “successful”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-C-C-E-S-S-F-U-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /səkˈsɛs.fəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “successfully” - see the side-by-side comparison. successful vs successfully
- 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.