wort
/wɜːt/
"wort" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wort” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #33,912 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #33,912
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
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 | wort |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /wɜːt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #33,912 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “wort” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for wort is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /wɜːt/. Corpus data places it at rank #33,912 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for wort, with forms such as "owrt", "worrt", and "wortt". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "wt", "wow", "wot", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *wréh₂ds From Middle English wort, wurt, wyrte (“any herb or plant; herb or plant used as food or medicine; (specifically) cabbage or vegetable of the genus Brassica; (chiefly plural) dish of cooked vegetables”) [and other forms], from Old English… The correct English form is wort, spelled W-O-R-T.
Definition
- 1Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
- 2Chiefly in the plural: a plant of the genus Brassica used as a vegetable; a brassica; especially, a cabbage (Brassica oleracea).
- 3A non-vascular plant growing on land from the division Anthocerotophyta (the hornworts) or Marchantiophyta (liverworts); an anthocerotophyte or marchantiophyte.
Etymology
PIE word *wréh₂ds From Middle English wort, wurt, wyrte (“any herb or plant; herb or plant used as food or medicine; (specifically) cabbage or vegetable of the genus Brassica; (chiefly plural) dish of cooked vegetables”) [and other forms], from Old English wyrt (“a plant; vegetable; herb, spice”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *wurti (“a root; a spice”), from Proto-Germanic *wrōts (“a root”), from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“a root”). Doublet of root and related to orchard. Cognates * Old Dutch wort (“herb; plant”) (Middle Dutch wort (“herb; root”)) * Old High German wurz (“herb; root; spice”) (Middle High German wurz, modern German Wurz) * Old Norse jurt, urt (“herb”) (Icelandic jurt, Norwegian urt, Old Danish urt (modern Danish urt), Old Swedish yrt (“plant”) (modern Swedish ört)) * Old Saxon wurt (“herb; plant; root”) (Middle Low German wort, wurt)
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: owrt,worrt,wortt,wotr,wrot,wwort
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of wort - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “wort”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-O-R-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /wɜːt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “wt” - see the side-by-side comparison. wort vs wt
- 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.