surgery
/ˈsɜː.d͡ʒə.ɹi/
"surgery" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“surgery” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,371 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,371
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act or process involving major incisions to remove, repair, or replace a part of a body; an instance of this process (a procedure).
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 | surgery |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɜː.d͡ʒə.ɹi/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #2,371 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “surgery” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for surgery is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɜː.d͡ʒə.ɹi/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,371 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for surgery, with forms such as "srugery", "ssurgery", and "sugrery". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "surry", "survey", "Surrey", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English surgerie, from Old French surgerie, from Latin chirurgia, from Ancient Greek χειρουργία (kheirourgía), from χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + ἔργον (érgon, “work”). Doublet of chirurgy. The correct English form is surgery, spelled S-U-R-G-E-R-Y.
Definition
- 1The act or process involving major incisions to remove, repair, or replace a part of a body; an instance of this process (a procedure).
- 2The medical specialty related to the performance of surgical procedures.
- 3A room or department where surgery is performed.
- 4A doctor's office; a clinic.
- 5A medical practitioner’s office hours.
- 6Any arrangement where people arrive and wait for an interview with certain people, particularly a politician. cf. clinic.
- 7A pre-packaged bankruptcy or "quick bankruptcy".
- 8The production of a manifold by removing parts of one manifold and replacing them with corresponding parts of others.
- 9Drastic changes made to anything.
Etymology
From Middle English surgerie, from Old French surgerie, from Latin chirurgia, from Ancient Greek χειρουργία (kheirourgía), from χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + ἔργον (érgon, “work”). Doublet of chirurgy.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: srugery,ssurgery,sugrery,suregry,surgerry,surgeryy,surgeyr,surggery,surgrey,surrgery,usrgery
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of surgery - 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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Using “surgery”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-R-G-E-R-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɜː.d͡ʒə.ɹi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “surry” - see the side-by-side comparison. surgery vs surry
- 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.