swatch
/swɒtʃ/
"swatch" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“swatch” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #36,771 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #36,771
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A piece, pattern, or sample, generally of cloth or a similar material.
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 | swatch |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /swɒtʃ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #36,771 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “swatch” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for swatch is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /swɒtʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #36,771 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for swatch, with forms such as "sawtch", "sswatch", and "swacth". 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 also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "swath", "switch", "swatches", 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 earlier Northern England dialectal swache (“the counterfoil or counterstock of a tally”) (1512); further etymology unknown. Cognate with Scots swach, swatch. Compare English swath, swathe. Compare also Old English swæcc (“taste; flavour; odour; fragran… The correct English form is swatch, spelled S-W-A-T-C-H.
Definition
- 1A piece, pattern, or sample, generally of cloth or a similar material.
- 2A selection of such samples bound together.
- 3A clump or portion of something.
- 4A demonstration, an example, a proof.
- 5A tag or other small object attached to another item as a means of identifying its owner; a tally; specifically the counterfoil of a tally.
Etymology
From earlier Northern England dialectal swache (“the counterfoil or counterstock of a tally”) (1512); further etymology unknown. Cognate with Scots swach, swatch. Compare English swath, swathe. Compare also Old English swæcc (“taste; flavour; odour; fragrance”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sawtch,sswatch,swacth,swatcch,swatchh,swathc,swattch,swtach,swwatch,wsatch
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of swatch - 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 “swatch”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-W-A-T-C-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /swɒtʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “swath” - see the side-by-side comparison. swatch vs swath
- 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.