wind shear
"wind-shear" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wind shear” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Variation in wind speed or direction over a short spatial distance.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | wind shear |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “wind shear” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
wind shear is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for wind shear, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
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 wind shear, spelled W-I-N-D- -S-H-E-A-R.
Definition
- 1Variation in wind speed or direction over a short spatial distance.
- 2A specific instance of variation in wind speed or direction over a short spatial distance.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “wind shear”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-I-N-D- -S-H-E-A-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.