withers
/ˈwɪð.ɚz/
"withers" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“withers” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #29,892 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #29,892
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The part of the back of a four-legged animal that is between the shoulder blades; in many species the highest point of the body and the standard place to measure the animal's height.
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 | withers |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɪð.ɚz/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #29,892 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “withers” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for withers is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɪð.ɚz/. Corpus data places it at rank #29,892 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The part of the back of a four-legged animal that is between the shoulder blades; in many species the highest point of the body and the standard place to measure the animal's height.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for withers, with forms such as "iwthers", "wihters", and "witehrs". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "writers", "witness", "waters", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From dialectal English wither (“against”) (compare wither-) + -s; see with. So-named because it is the part of the horse that pushes against a load. Compare German Widerrist (“withers”), from wider (“against”) + Rist (“wrist”). The correct English form is withers, spelled W-I-T-H-E-R-S.
Definition
- 1The part of the back of a four-legged animal that is between the shoulder blades; in many species the highest point of the body and the standard place to measure the animal's height.
Etymology
From dialectal English wither (“against”) (compare wither-) + -s; see with. So-named because it is the part of the horse that pushes against a load. Compare German Widerrist (“withers”), from wider (“against”) + Rist (“wrist”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: iwthers,wihters,witehrs,witherrs,witherss,withesr,withhers,withres,witthers,wtihers,wwithers
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of withers - 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 “withers”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-I-T-H-E-R-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈwɪð.ɚz/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “writers” - see the side-by-side comparison. withers vs writers
- 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.