wife
/wæf/
"wife" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wife” has 5 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #601. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #601
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A married woman, especially in relation to her spouse.
Corpus desk
Index EN-wife · wife · English
wife · rank #601 · 5 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #601
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 5 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH term
Nearest frequency peer: term (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “wife”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- space
space
99,403 corpus weight
- summer
summer
99,402 corpus weight
- term
term
99,401 corpus weight
- wife
wife
99,400 corpus weight
- 0
0
99,399 corpus weight
- America
America
99,398 corpus weight
What this shows “wife” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | wife |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /wæf/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #601 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “wife”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 5 spelling variants around wife (IPA /wæf/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #601 among 1,759 “W” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for wife, with forms such as "iwfe", "wfie", and "wief". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "win", "WTF", "WWE", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *wībą Proto-West Germanic *wīb Old English wīf Middle English wyf English wife Inherited from Middle English wyf, wif, from Old English wīf (“woman, wife”), from Proto-West Germanic *wīb, from Proto-Germanic *wībą (“woman; wife… The correct English form is wife, spelled W-I-F-E.
Definition
- 1A married woman, especially in relation to her spouse.
- 2The female of a pair of mated animals.
- 3Synonym of woman.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how wife appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The Fisherman and His Wife
And I geue vnto the ſame Elizabeth my wif the ſparuers and hangings of the ſame twoo beddes vſuallye occupied, and hanging ouer and about the ſame twoo beddes[…]
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *wībą Proto-West Germanic *wīb Old English wīf Middle English wyf English wife Inherited from Middle English wyf, wif, from Old English wīf (“woman, wife”), from Proto-West Germanic *wīb, from Proto-Germanic *wībą (“woman; wife”). Cognates Germanic cognates include Scots wife (“wife; woman”), North Frisian wuf, wüf (“wife, woman”), Saterland Frisian Wieuw (“woman; wife; female”), West Frisian wiif (“wife; woman”), Cimbrian baibe, baip (“wife; woman”), Dutch wijf (“woman; female”), German Weib (“woman; wife; female”), German Low German Wiev (“woman; female”), Mòcheno baib (“woman”), Vilamovian bow (“wife; woman”), Yiddish ווײַב (vayb, “wife; woman”) Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish viv (“wife; woman”), Faroese vív (“wife; woman”), Icelandic víf (“wife; woman”). The further etymology is unknown, with a number of disputed suggestions. One suggestion connects Tocharian A/B kip/kwīpe (“genitals, female pudenda”), for a hypothetical Indo-European *gʰwíbʰ- (“pudenda”). Another suggestion connects Old English wǣfan (“wrap, clothe”), Old Norse vífa (“wrap, veil”) for a suggested original motive of "married woman wearing a scarf". Yet another suggestion connects Old High German weibōn (“move to and fro”), Old Norse veifa (“swing, throw”), for a motive of "one who is moving busily; housekeeper, maidservant" (cf. German Weibel (“manservant, usher”)).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- iwfe
- wfie
- wief
- wiffe
- wwife
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of wife - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "wife", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (5 here; floor ≥5).