sun
/sʌn/
"sun" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sun” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,154 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #1,154
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The star that is closest to the Earth.
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 | sun |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /sʌn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,154 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sun” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sun is 3 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sʌn/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,154 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The star that is closest to the Earth.".
No misspelling variants are generated for sun in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "SW", "SV", "Sy", 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 Middle English sonne, sunne, from Old English sunne, from Proto-West Germanic *sunnā, from Proto-Germanic *sunnǭ, from heteroclitic inanimate Proto-Indo-European *sh₂wen-, oblique of Proto-Indo-European *sóh₂wl̥ (“sun”). See also Saterland Frisian Sunn… The correct English form is sun, spelled S-U-N.
Definition
- 1The star that is closest to the Earth.
Etymology
From Middle English sonne, sunne, from Old English sunne, from Proto-West Germanic *sunnā, from Proto-Germanic *sunnǭ, from heteroclitic inanimate Proto-Indo-European *sh₂wen-, oblique of Proto-Indo-European *sóh₂wl̥ (“sun”). See also Saterland Frisian Sunne, West Frisian sinne, German Low German Sünn, Dutch zon, German Sonne, Icelandic sunna; outside of Germanic, Welsh huan, Sanskrit स्वर् (svàr), Avestan 𐬓𐬇𐬧𐬔 (xᵛə̄ṇg)). Related to sol, Sol, Surya, and Helios. More at solar.
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 "sun"?
What does "sun" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "sun"?
How do you pronounce "sun"?
What is the origin of the word "sun"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “sun”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sʌn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “SW” - see the side-by-side comparison. sun vs SW
- 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.