ye
/jiː/
"ye" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ye” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,729) as a pronoun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #4,729
- frequency rank, English
- 366
- “Y” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - You (the people being addressed).
Corpus desk
Index EN-ye · ye · English
ye · rank #4,729 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #4,729
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 366
- PHOTO-FINISH wheels
Nearest frequency peer: wheels (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “ye”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- wages
wages
95,275 corpus weight
- wells
wells
95,274 corpus weight
- wheels
wheels
95,273 corpus weight
- ye
ye
95,272 corpus weight
- 8th
8th
95,270 corpus weight
- ABC
ABC
95,269 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “ye” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | ye |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Pronoun |
| IPA | /jiː/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #4,729 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ye” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ye is neighbouring look-alikes ("yo", "yu", …), not just typos; it is apronoun pronounced /jiː/. Frequency #4,729 among 366 “Y” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for ye, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "yo", "yu", "yr", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ye, ȝe, from Old English ġē (“ye”), the nominative case of the second-person plural personal pronoun, from Proto-West Germanic *jiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *jīz, a North-West variant of Proto-Germanic *jūz (“ye”), from Proto-Indo-European *… The correct English form is ye, spelled Y-E.
Definition
- 1You (the people being addressed).
- 2You (the singular person being addressed).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ye appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
My liefe (ſayd ſhe) ye know, that long ygo, / Whileſt ye in durance dwelt, ye to me gaue / A little mayde, the which ye chylded tho ; / The ſame againe if now ye liſt to haue, / The ſame is yonder Lady, whom high God did ſaue.
Queſtion me then no more; whate'er ye want, / Ask in my Name, and God ſhall ſurely grant. / You've asked nothing yet for Jesus sake : / Ask and receive, and of my joyes partake.
Etymology
From Middle English ye, ȝe, from Old English ġē (“ye”), the nominative case of the second-person plural personal pronoun, from Proto-West Germanic *jiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *jīz, a North-West variant of Proto-Germanic *jūz (“ye”), from Proto-Indo-European *yúHs (“ye”), plural of *túh₂. Cognate with Scots ye (“ye”), Saterland Frisian jie, Dutch gij, ge, jij, je (“ye”), Low German ji, jie (“ye”), German ihr (“ye”), Danish and Swedish I (“ye”), Icelandic ér (“ye”), Latvian jūs (“ye”), Sanskrit यूयम् (yūyám, “ye”). See also you.
Synonyms
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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What to do next
You've looked up "ye". Here's where to go from here.
- "ye" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "yo". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #4,729 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "Y" letter cohort. Y–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.