yea
/jeɪ/
"yea" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“yea” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,645) as an adverb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #4,645
- frequency rank, English
- 366
- “Y” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Yes, indeed.
Corpus desk
Index EN-yea · yea · English
yea · rank #4,645 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #4,645
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 366
- PHOTO-FINISH worn
Nearest frequency peer: worn (-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 “yea”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- waited
waited
95,359 corpus weight
- warren
warren
95,358 corpus weight
- worn
worn
95,357 corpus weight
- yea
yea
95,356 corpus weight
- AC
AC
95,355 corpus weight
- accompanied
accompanied
95,354 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “yea” 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 | yea |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /jeɪ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #4,645 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “yea” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for yea is neighbouring look-alikes ("yo", "yu", …), not just typos; it is anadverb pronounced /jeɪ/. Frequency #4,645 among 366 “Y” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No generated misspelling entries exist for yea in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "yo", "yu", "yr", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ye, ȝea, ya, ȝa, from Old English ġēa, iā (“yea, yes”), from Proto-West Germanic *jā. The modern pronunciation shows an irregular development of Early Modern English /ɛː/ to /eɪ/ in the standard language, probably from association with t… The correct English form is yea, spelled Y-E-A.
Definition
- 1Yes, indeed.
- 2Thus, so (now often accompanied by a hand gesture by way of measurement).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how yea appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
1597–1598, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum Yea, and the prophet of the heav'nly lyre, / Great Solomon sings in the English quire […]
Let no man say that the Devil is not a cruel tyrant. He may give his folk some scrapings of unhallowed pleasure, but he will exact tithes, yea, of anise and cummin, in return, and there is aye the reckoning to pay at the hinder end.
Etymology
From Middle English ye, ȝea, ya, ȝa, from Old English ġēa, iā (“yea, yes”), from Proto-West Germanic *jā. The modern pronunciation shows an irregular development of Early Modern English /ɛː/ to /eɪ/ in the standard language, probably from association with the antonym nay.
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 "yea", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "yea". Here's where to go from here.
- "yea" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "yo". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #4,645 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.