sick

/\zɪk\/ verb

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#45,317

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

sick is aFrenchverb. It means: Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de sicken. Pronounced \zɪk\. Often confused with six and sir.

Key facts for sick
PropertyValue
Headwordsick
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\zɪk\
Letters4
Frequency rank#45,317
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of sick in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for sick is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \zɪk\. Corpus data places it at rank #45,317 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de sicken.".

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for sick, with forms such as "isck", "scik", and "sicck". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "six", "sir", "sim", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is sick, spelled S-I-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de sicken.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: isck,scik,sicck,sickk,sikc,ssick

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sick

Misspelling Variants of "sick"

isck4scik4sicck5sickk5sikc4ssick5
Misspelling Variants of "sick"

Frequency rank: #45,317 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sick"?
"sick" is spelled S-I-C-K. The IPA pronunciation is \zɪk\.
What does "sick" mean?
As a verb, "sick" means: Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de sicken.
What words are commonly confused with "sick"?
"sick" is commonly confused with "six", "sir", "sim". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "sick"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "sick" is \zɪk\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "sick" come from?
"sick" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.