yaws
/ˈjɔːz/
"yaws" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“yaws” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A contagious tropical disease, caused by the spirochete Treponema pertenue, characterized by yellowish or reddish tumors, which often resemble berries.
Corpus desk
Index EN-yaws · yaws · English
yaws · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "Y" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | yaws |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈjɔːz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “yaws” in English
Rare enough to double-check
yaws is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈjɔːz/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A contagious tropical disease, caused by the spirochete Treponema pertenue, characterized by yellowish or reddish tumors, which often resemble berries.".
yaws has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Uncertain. Attested since the 1670s, perhaps from an English creole (or other language) of the Caribbean. The correct English form is yaws, spelled Y-A-W-S.
Definition
- 1A contagious tropical disease, caused by the spirochete Treponema pertenue, characterized by yellowish or reddish tumors, which often resemble berries.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how yaws appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Other threats came from organisms co-evolving with humans, including tapeworms and such spirochaetes as Treponema, the agent of syphilis, and the similar skin infection, yaws.
Etymology
Uncertain. Attested since the 1670s, perhaps from an English creole (or other language) of the Caribbean.
This word in other languages
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.