---
id: pyspellchecker
version: "0.9.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# pyspellchecker — Pure python spell checker based on work by Peter Norvig

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 2.9M/mo

## What it is and what it does

pyspellchecker is a pure Python spell checker that identifies misspelled words and suggests corrections by comparing them against word frequency lists using Levenshtein distance. It implements Peter Norvig's spell-checking algorithm, finding candidate corrections within an edit distance of up to 2 from the original word, then ranks them by frequency. The package includes built-in dictionaries for multiple languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Basque, Latvian, Dutch, and Persian.

The library is designed for straightforward integration into Python applications. It allows you to check words against known dictionaries, get the most likely correction for a misspelled word, retrieve a set of candidate corrections, and customize the word frequency list by loading additional text or word lists. For longer words, the distance parameter can be reduced from the default 2 to 1 to improve performance and reduce false positives.

Use it for:

- Validate user input in web forms or text editors to flag potential typos.
- Build a spell-checking layer into a document processing or content management system.
- Preprocess text data for NLP pipelines by identifying and correcting spelling errors.
- Create a multilingual spell checker for applications serving non-English users.
- Augment domain-specific applications with custom word lists for technical or specialized terminology.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Detects misspelled words and suggests corrections using Levenshtein distance matching against word frequency lists, with built-in support for multiple languages.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no external dependencies, supports modern Python versions, carries no known vulnerabilities, and uses a permissive MIT license. It is well-suited for projects needing basic to intermediate spell-checking functionality across multiple languages. Install it if you need straightforward spell detection and correction without heavy dependencies.

## Install

pip install pyspellchecker
uv add pyspellchecker
poetry add pyspellchecker

## Installing pyspellchecker

Before you install: Low friction: pure Python wheel with no runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with recent commits and stable release history.

License in practice: MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; suitable for most projects.

Quickstart:

pip install pyspellchecker

from pyspellchecker import SpellChecker

spell = SpellChecker()
misspelled = spell.unknown(['something', 'is', 'hapenning', 'here'])
for word in misspelled:
    print(spell.correction(word))

Requires Python 3.10 or later.

Verify before relying:

- Performance characteristics on very large word lists or documents.
- Accuracy of corrections across different language dictionaries.
- How well the distance parameter tuning affects real-world spell-checking quality.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 2.9M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

spell checker python, typo detection, word correction, levenshtein distance spell check, multilingual spell checker, spelling validation, misspelling detection, nlp, multilingual, zero-dependency

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/pyspellchecker) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/pyspellchecker/)