sweet pea

noun

"sweet-pea" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“sweet pea” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
9
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A flowering plant, Lathyrus odoratus, grown for its bright colours and sweet fragrance.

Corpus desk

Index EN-sweet-pea · sweet pea · English

sweet pea · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for sweet pea
PropertyValue
Headwordsweet pea
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “sweet pea” in English

sweet peasits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sweet pea is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No generated misspelling entries exist for sweet pea in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is sweet pea, spelled S-W-E-E-T- -P-E-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    A flowering plant, Lathyrus odoratus, grown for its bright colours and sweet fragrance.
  2. 2
    A term of endearment for something sweet or lovely; a child or an intimate partner, for example.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how sweet pea appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. No one had such pinks as he had; his sweet-william was unrivaled,—he had only half a dozen geraniums, but then they were such geraniums,—the cottage, once an unsightly little mass of lath and plaster, was now besprinkled with roses; and then, his sweet peas were in blossom, and, fortunately for him who had not much to do, they required a great deal of sti…
  2. He was a nice enough fellow, the boyfriendo. Sweet pea with Jo.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sweet pea"?
"sweet pea" is spelled S-W-E-E-T- -P-E-A.
What does "sweet pea" mean?
As a noun, "sweet pea" means: A flowering plant, Lathyrus odoratus, grown for its bright colours and sweet fragrance.
What language does "sweet pea" come from?
"sweet pea" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list