ten
/tɛn/
"ten" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ten” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #959 in English word frequency and used as a numeral.
- #959
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.
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 | ten |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Numeral |
| IPA | /tɛn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #959 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ten” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ten is 3 letters long, classified as a numeral, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɛn/. Corpus data places it at rank #959 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for ten, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "to", "TV", "TL", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *déḱm̥ From Middle English ten, tene, from Old English tīen, from Proto-West Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥. Cognate with Scots ten, tene (“ten”), West Frisian tsien (“ten”), Saterland Frisian tjoon (“… The correct English form is ten, spelled T-E-N.
Definition
- 1The number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.
Etymology
PIE word *déḱm̥ From Middle English ten, tene, from Old English tīen, from Proto-West Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥. Cognate with Scots ten, tene (“ten”), West Frisian tsien (“ten”), Saterland Frisian tjoon (“ten”), North Frisian tiin (“ten”). See also teen.
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); 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 “ten”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-E-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tɛn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “to” - see the side-by-side comparison. ten vs to
- 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.