swike
/swaɪk/
"swike" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“swike” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To deceive, cheat; betray.
Corpus desk
Index EN-swike · swike · English
swike · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | swike |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /swaɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “swike” in English
Rare enough to double-check
swike is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /swaɪk/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
swike doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English swiken, from Old English swīcan (“to wander, depart, cease from, yield, give way, fail, fall short, be wanting, abandon, desert, turn traitor, deceive, rebel”), from Proto-West Germanic *swīkwan, from Proto-Germanic *swīkwaną (“to dodge,… The correct English form is swike, spelled S-W-I-K-E.
Definition
- 1To deceive, cheat; betray.
- 2To stop, cease.
Etymology
From Middle English swiken, from Old English swīcan (“to wander, depart, cease from, yield, give way, fail, fall short, be wanting, abandon, desert, turn traitor, deceive, rebel”), from Proto-West Germanic *swīkwan, from Proto-Germanic *swīkwaną (“to dodge, swerve, avoid, betray”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweyg- (“to turn, move around, wander, swing”).
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.