sword
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "sword", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "sword" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "sword" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sword is aEnglishnoun. It means: A long bladed weapon with a grip and typically a pommel and crossguard (together forming a hilt), which is designed to cut, stab, slash and/or hack. Pronounced [sɔɹd]. It ranks #3,852 in English word frequency. Often confused with swot and sworn.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sword |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [sɔɹd] |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,852 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sword is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [sɔɹd]. Corpus data places it at rank #3,852 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for sword, with forms such as "sowrd", "ssword", and "swodr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "swot", "sworn", "swore", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from West Midland Middle English sword (swerd in most dialects), from Old English sweord (“sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *swerd (“sword”), from Proto-Germanic *swerdą (“sword”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂w- (“sharp”). Cognates Cog… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is sword, spelled S-W-O-R-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A long bladed weapon with a grip and typically a pommel and crossguard (together forming a hilt), which is designed to cut, stab, slash and/or hack.
- 2A suit in certain playing card decks, particularly those used in Spain and Italy, or those used for divination.
- 3A suit in certain playing card decks, particularly those used in Spain and Italy, or those used for divination.
- 4One of the end bars by which the lay of a hand loom is suspended.
- 5Violence; military might.
Etymology
Inherited from West Midland Middle English sword (swerd in most dialects), from Old English sweord (“sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *swerd (“sword”), from Proto-Germanic *swerdą (“sword”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂w- (“sharp”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian Swērt, Swiirt, swörd (“sword”), Saterland Frisian Swid, Swäid (“sword”), West Frisian swurd (“sword”), Dutch zwaard (“sword”), German Schwert (“sword”), Luxembourgish Schwäert (“sword”), Vilamovian świert (“sword”), Yiddish שווערד (shverd, “sword”), Danish sværd (“sword”), Faroese svørð (“sword”), Icelandic sverð (“sword”), Norn svird (“small longish object”), Norwegian Bokmål sverd (“sword”), Norwegian Nynorsk sverd, svørd (“sword”), Swedish svärd (“sword”); also Belarusian све́рдзел (svjérdzjel, “drill, drill bit”), Bulgarian свре́дел (svrédel, “drill, drill bit”), Czech svider (“drill bit”), Polish świder (“drill”), Russian сверло́ (sverló, “auger, bore, drill, drill bit”), Serbo-Croatian свр̏дло, svȑdlo (“auger”), Slovene sveder (“drill”), Ukrainian све́рдел (svérdel), све́рдло (svérdlo, “drill bit”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sowrd,ssword,swodr,swordd,sworrd,swrod,swword,wsord
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sword
Misspelling Variants of "sword"
Frequency rank: #3,852 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: