achy
/ˈeɪ.ki/
"achy" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“achy” is uncommon English (frequency #59,843 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,843
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - With or suffering from aches; sore.
Corpus desk
Index EN-achy · achy · English
achy · rank #59,843 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #59,843
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH abyssal
Nearest frequency peer: abyssal (-1 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “achy”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- aardvark
aardvark
40,161 corpus weight
- Absalom
Absalom
40,160 corpus weight
- abyssal
abyssal
40,159 corpus weight
- achy
achy
40,158 corpus weight
- Adirondacks
Adirondacks
40,156 corpus weight
- airstream
airstream
40,153 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “achy” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | achy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈeɪ.ki/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #59,843 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “achy” in English
Rare enough to double-check
achy is uncommon English at frequency #59,843 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈeɪ.ki/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "With or suffering from aches; sore.".
achy has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From ache + -y. The correct English form is achy, spelled A-C-H-Y.
Definition
- 1With or suffering from aches; sore.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how achy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The achy path leads downhill, bump bump bump, rocks jagged and the climate wetter and colder, till I’m toothless, beyond pain, on a frosty skerry beach, my fingers numb, my lungs flapping like dead leaves.
Sora, his cinematographer, Bill Kirstein, and the composer Lia Ouyang Rusli capture the achy pleasures of youthful friendship and the tectonic frictions of the personal, the political and the geological.
Etymology
From ache + -y.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "achy", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).