team
/tiːm/
"team" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“team” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #203 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #203
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A set of draught animals, such as two horses in front of a carriage.
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 | team |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tiːm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #203 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “team” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for team is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tiːm/. Corpus data places it at rank #203 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for team, with forms such as "etam", "taem", and "teamm". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TM", "ten", "tom", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tem, teem, teme, from Old English tēam (“child-bearing, offspring, brood, set of draught animals”), from Proto-West Germanic *taum, from Proto-Germanic *taumaz (“that which draws or pulls”), from Proto-Germanic *taugijaną, *tugōną, *teuh… The correct English form is team, spelled T-E-A-M.
Definition
- 1A set of draught animals, such as two horses in front of a carriage.
- 2Any group of people involved in the same activity, especially sports or work.
- 3A group of animals moving together, especially young ducks.
- 4A royalty or privilege granted by royal charter to a lord of a manor, of having, keeping, and judging in his court, his bondmen, neifes, and villains, and their offspring, or suit, that is, goods and chattels, and appurtenances thereto.
- 5A group of people who favor one side of a binary debate that is divided and lacks a well-established clear consensus.
Etymology
From Middle English tem, teem, teme, from Old English tēam (“child-bearing, offspring, brood, set of draught animals”), from Proto-West Germanic *taum, from Proto-Germanic *taumaz (“that which draws or pulls”), from Proto-Germanic *taugijaną, *tugōną, *teuhōną, *teuhaną (“to lead, bring, pull, draw”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to pull, lead”). Cognate with Scots team, teem (“a chain, harness”), Saterland Frisian Toom (“bridle; breeding”), West Frisian team (“bridle, team”), Dutch toom (“bridle, reins, flock of birds”), German Low German Toom (“bridle”), German Zaum (“bridle”), Norwegian tømme (“bridle, rein”), Swedish töm (“leash, rein”). More at teem, tie, tow.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etam,taem,teamm,tema,tteam
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of team - 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 “team”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-E-A-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tiːm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “TM” - see the side-by-side comparison. team vs TM
- 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.