wife
/wæf/
"wife" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wife” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #601 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #601
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A married woman, especially in relation to her spouse.
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) |
Where “wife” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for wife is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /wæf/. Corpus data places it at rank #601 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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.
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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Using “wife”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-I-F-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /wæf/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “win” - see the side-by-side comparison. wife vs win
- 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.