swank
/ˈswæŋk/
"swank" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“swank” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #43,946 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #43,946
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Fashionably elegant, posh.
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 | swank |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈswæŋk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #43,946 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “swank” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for swank is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈswæŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #43,946 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Fashionably elegant, posh.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for swank, with forms such as "sawnk", "sswank", and "swakn". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "swap", "sway", "SWAT", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From dialectal swank (“to strut, behave ostentatiously”), perhaps from an unrecorded Old English root, derived from Proto-Germanic *swankijaną (“to cause to sway, swing”) or from Proto-Germanic *swankaz (“lithe, bendsome, slender”), related to the Scots swa… The correct English form is swank, spelled S-W-A-N-K.
Definition
- 1Fashionably elegant, posh.
Etymology
From dialectal swank (“to strut, behave ostentatiously”), perhaps from an unrecorded Old English root, derived from Proto-Germanic *swankijaną (“to cause to sway, swing”) or from Proto-Germanic *swankaz (“lithe, bendsome, slender”), related to the Scots swank and the Middle High German swanken, modern German schwanken (“to sway”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sawnk,sswank,swakn,swankk,swannk,swnak,swwank,wsank
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of swank - 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 "swank"?
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Using “swank”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-W-A-N-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈswæŋk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “swap” - see the side-by-side comparison. swank vs swap
- 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.