sway
/ˈsweɪ̯/
"sway" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sway” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,150 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,150
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of swaying; a swaying motion; a swing or sweep of a weapon.
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 | sway |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsweɪ̯/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #12,150 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sway” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sway is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsweɪ̯/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,150 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for sway, with forms such as "sawy", "ssway", and "swayy". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Sy", "swim", "swot", 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 swey (“to fall, swoon”), from Middle English sweyen, from Old English *swǣġan (“to bend, bow”), from Proto-West Germanic *swaigijan, from Proto-Germanic *swaigijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sweh₁- See also Saterland Frisian swooie (“to swing,… The correct English form is sway, spelled S-W-A-Y.
Definition
- 1The act of swaying; a swaying motion; a swing or sweep of a weapon.
- 2A rocking or swinging motion.
- 3Influence, weight, or authority that inclines to one side
- 4Preponderance; turn or cast of balance.
- 5Rule; dominion; control; power.
- 6A switch or rod used by thatchers to bind their work.
- 7The maximum amplitude of a vehicle's lateral motion.
- 8Synonym of sweet flag (“Acorus calamus”)
Etymology
From earlier swey (“to fall, swoon”), from Middle English sweyen, from Old English *swǣġan (“to bend, bow”), from Proto-West Germanic *swaigijan, from Proto-Germanic *swaigijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sweh₁- See also Saterland Frisian swooie (“to swing, wave, wobble”); also Lithuanian svai̇̃gti (“to become giddy or dizzy”), the second element of Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌-𐬱𐬑𐬎𐬀𐬑𐬙𐬀 (paⁱri-šxuaxta, “to surround”), Sanskrit स्वजते (svájate, “he embraces, enfolds”). The noun derived from the verb.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sawy,ssway,swayy,swway,swya,wsay
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sway - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "sway"?
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Using “sway”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-W-A-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsweɪ̯/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Sy” - see the side-by-side comparison. sway vs Sy
- 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.