ur
/ɝ/
"ur" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ur” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,224) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #8,224
- frequency rank, English
- 1,433
- “U” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Expressing hesitation or inarticulacy; er, um.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ur · ur · English
ur · rank #8,224 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #8,224
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,433
- PHOTO-FINISH turtle
Nearest frequency peer: turtle (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “ur”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- transgender
transgender
91,780 corpus weight
- troubled
troubled
91,779 corpus weight
- turtle
turtle
91,778 corpus weight
- ur
ur
91,777 corpus weight
- verbal
verbal
91,776 corpus weight
- violated
violated
91,775 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “ur” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | ur |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | /ɝ/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #8,224 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ur” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ur is neighbouring look-alikes ("us", "UT", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced /ɝ/. Frequency #8,224 among 1,433 “U” headwords. Gloss: "Expressing hesitation or inarticulacy; er, um.".
No misspelling variants are generated for ur in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "us", "UT", "UV", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is ur, spelled U-R.
Definition
- 1Expressing hesitation or inarticulacy; er, um.
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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What to do next
You've looked up "ur". Here's where to go from here.
- "ur" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "us". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #8,224 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "U" letter cohort. U–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.