waitress
/ˈweɪ.tɹɪs/
"waitress" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“waitress” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,837 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,837
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A female attendant who serves customers in a restaurant, café, or similar.
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 | waitress |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈweɪ.tɹɪs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #13,837 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “waitress” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for waitress is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈweɪ.tɹɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,837 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A female attendant who serves customers in a restaurant, café, or similar.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for waitress, with forms such as "awitress", "wairtess", and "waiterss". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "witness", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From waiter + -ess. The correct English form is waitress, spelled W-A-I-T-R-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1A female attendant who serves customers in a restaurant, café, or similar.
Etymology
From waiter + -ess.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: awitress,wairtess,waiterss,waitres,waitrress,waitrses,waittress,watiress,wiatress,wwaitress
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of waitress - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "waitress"?
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Using “waitress”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-A-I-T-R-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈweɪ.tɹɪs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “witness” - see the side-by-side comparison. waitress vs witness
- 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.