yeast
/jiːst/
"yeast" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“yeast” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,824 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #11,824
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
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 | yeast |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /jiːst/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #11,824 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “yeast” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for yeast is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /jiːst/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,824 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 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 yeast, with forms such as "eyast", "yaest", and "yeasst". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 10 confusable-pair relationships, "yet", "yes", "Yeats", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English yest, yeest, gest, gist, from Old English ġist, ġyst, from Proto-West Germanic *jestu, from Proto-Germanic *jestuz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jääst (“yeast”), West Frisian gêst, gist (“yeast”), Dutch gist (“yeast”), German Low Germa… The correct English form is yeast, spelled Y-E-A-S-T.
Definition
- 1An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
- 2A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- 3A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- 4A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- 5A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- 6A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- 7A single-celled fungus of a wide variety of taxonomic families.
- 8A frothy foam.
Etymology
From Middle English yest, yeest, gest, gist, from Old English ġist, ġyst, from Proto-West Germanic *jestu, from Proto-Germanic *jestuz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jääst (“yeast”), West Frisian gêst, gist (“yeast”), Dutch gist (“yeast”), German Low German Gest (“yeast”), German Gischt (“sea foam”), Swedish jäst (“yeast”), Norwegian jest (“yeast”), Icelandic jöstur (“yeast”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eyast,yaest,yeasst,yeastt,yesat,yyeast
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of yeast - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “yeast”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is Y-E-A-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /jiːst/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “yet” - see the side-by-side comparison. yeast vs yet
- 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.