waterfowl
"waterfowl" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“waterfowl” has 14 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #33,906. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #33,906
- frequency rank, English
- 12,113
- “W” headwords
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of the birds, such as ducks, geese and swans, that spend most of their non-flying time on water; especially those of the family Anatidae.
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 | waterfowl |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #33,906 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “waterfowl” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 14 spelling variants around waterfowl, anoun. Corpus frequency is #33,906 among 12,113 “W” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Any of the birds, such as ducks, geese and swans, that spend most of their non-flying time on water; especially those of the family Anatidae.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for waterfowl, with forms such as "awterfowl", "waetrfowl", and "watefrowl". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "Watertown", "waterfall", "Waterford", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English waterfoul, water-foul, equivalent to water + fowl. Compare Old English dopfugel (“waterfowl, moorhen”, literally “dipping-fowl”). The correct English form is waterfowl, spelled W-A-T-E-R-F-O-W-L.
Definition
- 1Any of the birds, such as ducks, geese and swans, that spend most of their non-flying time on water; especially those of the family Anatidae.
Etymology
From Middle English waterfoul, water-foul, equivalent to water + fowl. Compare Old English dopfugel (“waterfowl, moorhen”, literally “dipping-fowl”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- awterfowl
- waetrfowl
- watefrowl
- waterffowl
- waterfolw
- waterfowll
- waterfowwl
- waterfwol
- waterofwl
- waterrfowl
- watrefowl
- watterfowl
- wtaerfowl
- wwaterfowl
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of waterfowl - 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
How do you spell "waterfowl"?
What does "waterfowl" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "waterfowl"?
What is the origin of the word "waterfowl"?
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Using “waterfowl”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-A-T-E-R-F-O-W-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “Watertown” - see the side-by-side comparison. waterfowl vs Watertown
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Same frequency band
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.