swollen
/ˈswəʊ.lən/
"swollen" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“swollen” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,622 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #13,622
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Protuberant or abnormally distended (as by injury or disease).
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 | swollen |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈswəʊ.lən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #13,622 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “swollen” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for swollen is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈswəʊ.lən/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,622 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Protuberant or abnormally distended (as by injury or disease).".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for swollen, with forms such as "sowllen", "sswollen", and "swlolen". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "stolen", "sullen", "swelled", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English swollen, i-swolle, y-swolle, yswolle, ȝeswollen, from Old English swollen, ġeswollen, from Proto-Germanic *swullanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”). Cognate with West Frisian swollen (“swollen”), Dutch gezwolle… The correct English form is swollen, spelled S-W-O-L-L-E-N.
Definition
- 1Protuberant or abnormally distended (as by injury or disease).
Etymology
From Middle English swollen, i-swolle, y-swolle, yswolle, ȝeswollen, from Old English swollen, ġeswollen, from Proto-Germanic *swullanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”). Cognate with West Frisian swollen (“swollen”), Dutch gezwollen (“swollen”), German geschwollen (“swollen”), Swedish svullen (“swollen”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sowllen,sswollen,swlolen,swoleln,swolen,swollenn,swollne,swwollen,wsollen
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of swollen - 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 “swollen”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-W-O-L-L-E-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈswəʊ.lən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “stolen” - see the side-by-side comparison. swollen vs stolen
- 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.