adenine
/ˈæ.dəˌniːn/
"adenine" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“adenine” is uncommon English (frequency #63,405 among 35,202 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,405
- frequency rank, English
- 35,202
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A base, C₅H₅N₅, found in certain glands and tissues, which pairs with thymine in DNA and uracil in RNA.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | adenine |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæ.dəˌniːn/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #63,405 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “adenine” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
adenine is uncommon English at frequency #63,405 among 35,202 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈæ.dəˌniːn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A base, C₅H₅N₅, found in certain glands and tissues, which pairs with thymine in DNA and uracil in RNA.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for adenine, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From German Adenin, from Ancient Greek ἀδήν (adḗn, “gland”). By surface analysis, aden- + -ine. It was named in 1885 by the German biochemist Albrecht Kossel, in reference to the pancreas (a specific gland) from which Kossel's sample had been extracted. The correct English form is adenine, spelled A-D-E-N-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1A base, C₅H₅N₅, found in certain glands and tissues, which pairs with thymine in DNA and uracil in RNA.
Etymology
From German Adenin, from Ancient Greek ἀδήν (adḗn, “gland”). By surface analysis, aden- + -ine. It was named in 1885 by the German biochemist Albrecht Kossel, in reference to the pancreas (a specific gland) from which Kossel's sample had been extracted.
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Using “adenine”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-D-E-N-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈæ.dəˌniːn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.