wifes

noun

"wifes" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“wifes” is uncommon English (frequency #52,721 among 12,113 “W” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#52,721
frequency rank, English
12,113
“W” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - plural of wife

Key facts for wifes
PropertyValue
Headwordwifes
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters5
Frequency rank#52,721
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “wifes” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). wifes lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

wifes is uncommon English at frequency #52,721 among 12,113 “W” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for wifes, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is wifes, spelled W-I-F-E-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    plural of wife
  2. 2
    genitive of wife

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 "wifes"?
"wifes" is spelled W-I-F-E-S.
What does "wifes" mean?
As a noun, "wifes" means: plural of wife
What language does "wifes" come from?
"wifes" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “wifes”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is W-I-F-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words

Other uncommon English words near this rank

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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list