shelf

The filled squares are the vowel — 1 of 5 letters. In the size-ranked list, shelf sits in the everyday tier.

Letters

58,636 words share the length

Syllables

1stress on the first

Anagrams

1flesh

One letter away

2sheaf, shell

• nouna support that consists of a horizontal surface for holding objects
• nouna projecting ridge on a mountain or submerged under water

The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary reads it as sh eh1 l f — one syllable, the stress on syllable 1.

12 words share everything from the last stressed vowel on — that is what counts as a rhyme here.

• bookshelf
• elf
• herself
• himself
• itself
• myself
• oneself
• ourself
• self
• yourself
• thyself
• hisself

One other word use exactly these letters: flesh.

The whole set on one page.

• sheaf
• shell

Same length, one position changed. <1% of the 8,636 words this long are a neighbour.

• 5 letter words8,636
• Starts S18,988
• Starts SH1,459
• Ends F
• 5 letters starting S

Tier: everyday. The tiers come from the English Speller Database and rank by list size, not by how often a word is used — see where the words come from.