suspension
/səˈspɛnʃən/
"suspension" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“suspension” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #4,804 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #4,804
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 16
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of suspending, or the state of being suspended.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | suspension |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /səˈspɛnʃən/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #4,804 |
| Misspellings tracked | 16 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “suspension” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for suspension is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səˈspɛnʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,804 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 16 likely wrong-spelling variants for suspension, with forms such as "ssupension", "ssuspension", and "supsension". 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 is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Late Latin suspensiōnem (“arching, vaulting; suspension”), from suspendēre (“to hang up, to suspend”), from sub- (“under”) + pendere (“to hang, to suspend”), from Proto-Italic *pendō (“to hang, to put in a hanging position”), from Proto-Indo-E… The correct English form is suspension, spelled S-U-S-P-E-N-S-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1The act of suspending, or the state of being suspended.
- 2A temporary or conditional delay, interruption or discontinuation.
- 3The state of a solid or substance produced when its particles are mixed with, but not dissolved in, a fluid, and are capable of separation by straining.
- 4Thus a kind of silt or sludge.
- 5The act of keeping a person who is listening in doubt and expectation of what is to follow.
- 6The temporary barring of a person from a workplace, society, etc. pending investigation into alleged misconduct.
- 7The process of barring a student from school grounds as a form of punishment (particularly out-of-school suspension).
- 8The act of or discord produced by prolonging one or more tones of a chord into the chord which follows, thus producing a momentary discord, suspending the concord which the ear expects.
- 9A stay or postponement of the execution of a sentence, usually by letters of suspension granted on application to the Lord Ordinary.
- 10A topological space derived from another by taking the product of the original space with an interval and collapsing each end of the product to a point.
- 11A function derived, in a standard way, from another, such that the instant function’s domain and codomain are suspensions of the original function’s.
- 12The system of springs and shock absorbers connected to the wheels in an automobile, which allows the vehicle to move smoothly with reduced shock to its occupants.
Etymology
Borrowed from Late Latin suspensiōnem (“arching, vaulting; suspension”), from suspendēre (“to hang up, to suspend”), from sub- (“under”) + pendere (“to hang, to suspend”), from Proto-Italic *pendō (“to hang, to put in a hanging position”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pénd-e-ti, from *(s)pend- (“to pull; to spin”)). Compare Anglo-Norman suspensiun, French suspension, Occitan suspensio.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ssupension,ssuspension,supsension,susepnsion,suspenison,suspennsion,suspensino,suspensionn,suspensoin,suspenssion,suspention,suspesnion,suspnesion,susppension,susspension,usspension
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of suspension - 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
How do you spell "suspension"?
What does "suspension" mean?
What are common misspellings of "suspension"?
How do you pronounce "suspension"?
What is the origin of the word "suspension"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “suspension”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-S-P-E-N-S-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /səˈspɛnʃən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.