abrade
/əˈbɹeɪd/
"abrade" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“abrade” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To rub or wear off; erode.
Corpus desk
Index EN-abrade · abrade · English
abrade · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | abrade |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /əˈbɹeɪd/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “abrade” in English
Rare enough to double-check
abrade is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /əˈbɹeɪd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for abrade in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin abrādō (“scrape off”), from ab (“from, away from”) + rādō (“scrape”). First attested in 1677. The correct English form is abrade, spelled A-B-R-A-D-E.
Definition
- 1To rub or wear off; erode.
- 2To wear down or exhaust, as a person; irritate.
- 3To irritate by rubbing; chafe.
- 4To cause the surface to become more rough.
- 5To undergo abrasion.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how abrade appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“Wildcat Ridge” is the name given to a rock about 3 feet (1 meter) wide that likely formed billions of years ago as mud and fine sand settled in an evaporating saltwater lake. On July 20, the rover abraded some of the surface of Wildcat Ridge so it could analyze the area with the instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence…
Etymology
From Latin abrādō (“scrape off”), from ab (“from, away from”) + rādō (“scrape”). First attested in 1677.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.