wort
/wɜːt/
"wort" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“wort” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #33,912. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #33,912
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
Corpus desk
Index EN-wort · wort · English
wort · rank #33,912 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #33,912
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH worrisome
Nearest frequency peer: worrisome (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “wort”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- widescreen
widescreen
66,093 corpus weight
- womanhood
womanhood
66,091 corpus weight
- worrisome
worrisome
66,090 corpus weight
- wort
wort
66,089 corpus weight
- wreaths
wreaths
66,088 corpus weight
- wy
wy
66,087 corpus weight
What this shows “wort” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “wort”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around wort (IPA /wɜːt/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #33,912 among 1,759 “W” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how wort appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[T]he people of his citye, […] shulde be norysshed with barly brede and cakes of whete, and that the residue of their diete shulde be salte, olyues, chese, and likes, and more ouer wortes that the feldes do brynge furthe, for their potage.
[H]e [a poor person] drinks vvater, and liue's of vvort leaues, pulſe, like a hog, or ſcraps like a dog, […]
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "wort", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).