urn
/ɜːn/
"urn" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“urn” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #21,404 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #21,404
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A vase with a footed base.
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 | urn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɜːn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #21,404 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “urn” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for urn is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɜːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #21,404 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for urn, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "us", "UT", "UV", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English urne, from Old French urne, from Latin urna (“vessel”). Doublet of urna. The correct English form is urn, spelled U-R-N.
Definition
- 1A vase with a footed base.
- 2A metal vessel for serving tea or coffee.
- 3A vessel for the ashes or cremains of a deceased person.
- 4Any place of burial; the grave.
- 5A measure of capacity for liquids, containing about three gallons and a half, wine measure. It was half the amphora, and four times the congius.
- 6A hollow body shaped like an urn, in which the spores of mosses are contained; a spore case; a theca.
Etymology
From Middle English urne, from Old French urne, from Latin urna (“vessel”). Doublet of urna.
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 “urn”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is U-R-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɜːn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “us” - see the side-by-side comparison. urn vs us
- 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.