trick
/tɹɪk/
"trick" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“trick” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,145 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,145
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.
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 | trick |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tɹɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,145 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “trick” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for trick is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɹɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,145 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for trick, with forms such as "rtick", "tirck", and "trcik". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "trip", "trio", "trim", 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 trikke, from Old Northern French trique (related to Old French trichier (“to defraud, act dishonestly, conceal, deceive, cheat”); > modern French tricher), itself possibly from Middle High German trechen (“to launch a shot at, play a tri… The correct English form is trick, spelled T-R-I-C-K.
Definition
- 1Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.
- 2A single element of a magician's (or any variety entertainer's) act; a magic trick.
- 3An entertaining difficult physical action.
- 4An effective, clever or quick way of doing something.
- 5Mischievous or annoying behavior; a prank.
- 6A particular habit or manner; a peculiarity; a trait.
- 7A knot, braid, or plait of hair.
- 8A sequence in which each player plays a card and a winning play is determined.
- 9A sex act, chiefly one performed for payment; an act of prostitution.
- 10A customer or client of a prostitute.
- 11A term of abuse.
- 12A daily period of work, especially in shift-based jobs.
- 13A sailor's spell of work at the helm, usually two hours long.
- 14A toy; a trifle; a plaything.
- 15A representation of arms that is drawn as an outline with labels to indicate colors.
Etymology
From Middle English trikke, from Old Northern French trique (related to Old French trichier (“to defraud, act dishonestly, conceal, deceive, cheat”); > modern French tricher), itself possibly from Middle High German trechen (“to launch a shot at, play a trick on”), or one of its derivatives (e.g. Middle High German ūftrechen (“to do something to someone, hurt someone”), vertrechen (“to conceal, get over on someone”), zuotrechen (“to obtain falsely or deceitfully, wangle, finagle”), etc.); yet the Old French verb is equally likely to be derived from Vulgar Latin *triccāre, from Late Latin tricāre, from Latin trīcor, trīcārī (“dodge, search for detours; haggle, quibble”). The term has been connected to Middle Dutch treck, trec (“draw, line, desire, game move, cord, stratagem, ruse, trick”), from Middle Dutch trekken, trēken (“to pull, place, put, move”), from Old Dutch *trekken, *trekan (“to move, drag”), from Proto-Germanic *trakjaną, *trekaną (“to drag, scrape, pull”), from Proto-Indo-European *dreg- (“to drag, scrape”). If they are related, trick would be cognate with Low German trekken, Middle High German trecken, trechen, Danish trække, and Old Frisian trekka, Romanian truc and other Romance languages. Compare track, treachery, trig, and trigger.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: rtick,tirck,trcik,tricck,trickk,trikc,trrick,ttrick
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of trick - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “trick”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-R-I-C-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tɹɪk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “trip” - see the side-by-side comparison. trick vs trip
- 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.