turn
/tɜːn/
"turn" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“turn” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #484. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #484
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To make a non-linear physical movement.
Corpus desk
Index EN-turn · turn · English
turn · rank #484 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #484
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH third
Nearest frequency peer: third (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “turn”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- report
report
99,520 corpus weight
- soon
soon
99,519 corpus weight
- third
third
99,518 corpus weight
- turn
turn
99,517 corpus weight
- whether
whether
99,516 corpus weight
- among
among
99,515 corpus weight
What this shows “turn” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | turn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /tɜːn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #484 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “turn”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around turn (IPA /tɜːn/), averb. Corpus frequency is #484 among 3,151 “T” headwords. Wiktionary lists 34 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for turn, with forms such as "trun", "tturn", and "tunr". 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, "tut", "tux", "Tyr", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *terh₁-der. Ancient Greek τόρνος (tórnos)bor. Latin tornus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin tornōbor. Proto-West G… The correct English form is turn, spelled T-U-R-N.
Definition
- 1To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 2To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 3To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 4To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 5To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 6To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 7To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 8To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 9To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 10To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 11To make a non-linear physical movement.
- 12To change condition or attitude.
- 13To change condition or attitude.
- 14To change condition or attitude.
- 15To change condition or attitude.
- 16To change condition or attitude.
- 17To change condition or attitude.
- 18To change condition or attitude.
- 19To change condition or attitude.
- 20To change condition or attitude.
- 21To change condition or attitude.
- 22To change condition or attitude.
- 23To change condition or attitude.
- 24To change condition or attitude.
- 25To change condition or attitude.
- 26To change one's course of action; to take a new approach.
- 27To complete.
- 28To make (money); turn a profit.
- 29Of a player, to go past an opposition player with the ball in one's control.
- 30To undergo the process of turning on a lathe.
- 31To bring down the feet of a child in the womb, in order to facilitate delivery.
- 32To invert a type of the same thickness, as a temporary substitute for any sort which is exhausted.
- 33To translate.
- 34To magically or divinely repel undead.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how turn appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
the Earth turns
turn on the spot
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *terh₁-der. Ancient Greek τόρνος (tórnos)bor. Latin tornus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin tornōbor. Proto-West Germanic *turnēn Old English turnian ▲ Latin tornō Old French tornerbor. Middle English turnen English turn From Middle English turnen, from Old English turnian, tyrnan (“to turn, rotate, revolve”), from Proto-West Germanic *turnēn (“to turn, lathe”) (also the source of German turnen and its derivatives) and Old French torner (“to turn”), both from Latin tornāre (“to round off, turn in a lathe”), from tornus (“lathe”), from Ancient Greek τόρνος (tórnos, “turning-lathe: a tool used for making circles”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, rub by turning, turn, twist, bore”). Cognate with Old English þrāwan (“to turn, twist, wind”), whence English throw. Displaced native Middle English wenden from Old English wendan (see wend), and Middle English trenden from Old English trendan (see trend), among several other terms.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- trun
- tturn
- tunr
- turnn
- turrn
- utrn
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of turn - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "turn", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).