us
/əs/
"us" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“us” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #95) as a pronoun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #95
- frequency rank, English
- 1,433
- “U” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Me and at least one other person, excluding the person(s) being addressed. (exclusive us.)
Corpus desk
Index EN-us · us · English
us · rank #95 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #95
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,433
- PHOTO-FINISH these
Nearest frequency peer: these (-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 “us”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- could
could
99,909 corpus weight
- back
back
99,908 corpus weight
- these
these
99,907 corpus weight
- us
us
99,906 corpus weight
- want
want
99,905 corpus weight
- because
because
99,904 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “us” 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 | us |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Pronoun |
| IPA | /əs/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #95 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “us” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for us is neighbouring look-alikes ("UT", "UV", …), not just typos; it is apronoun pronounced /əs/. Frequency #95 among 1,433 “U” headwords. 9 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
us has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "UT", "UV", "UW", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *n̥smé Proto-Germanic *uns Old English ūs Middle English us English us From Middle English us, from Old English ūs (“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-West Germanic *uns, from Proto-Germanic *uns (“us”), from Proto… The correct English form is us, spelled U-S.
Definition
- 1Me and at least one other person, excluding the person(s) being addressed. (exclusive us.)
- 2Me and at least one other person, including the person(s) being addressed. (inclusive us.)
- 3We, used in the same circumstances where "me" would be used instead of "I", e.g. for the pronoun in isolation or as the complement of the copula
- 4Any entity that the speaker is a part of or identifies with, such as place of employment or education, nation, region, language, etc.
- 5People in general.
- 6The person(s) being addressed.
- 7Used to imply connection between the speaker's experiences or activities and a group of listeners.
- 8Me.
- 9Me (in all contexts).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how us appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Don't treat us like idiots.
Let's ask him if he'll give us a lift.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *n̥smé Proto-Germanic *uns Old English ūs Middle English us English us From Middle English us, from Old English ūs (“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-West Germanic *uns, from Proto-Germanic *uns (“us”), from Proto-Indo-European *n̥swé, alteration of *n̥smé (“us”). The compensatory lengthening was lost in Middle English due to the word being unstressed when used. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uus (“us”), West Frisian us, ús (“us”), Low German uns, us (“us”), Dutch ons (“us”), German uns (“us”), Danish os (“us”), Latin nōs (“we, us”).
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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What to do next
You've looked up "us". Here's where to go from here.
- "us" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "UT". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #95 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.