adiabatic
/ˌeɪ.dɪəˈbæt.ɪk/
"adiabatic" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“adiabatic” is an uncommon English word, ranked #59,169 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #59,169
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Without gain or loss of heat (and thus with no change in entropy, in the quasistatic approximation).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | adiabatic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˌeɪ.dɪəˈbæt.ɪk/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #59,169 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “adiabatic” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for adiabatic is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌeɪ.dɪəˈbæt.ɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #59,169 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for adiabatic in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: 19th-century coinage (introduced by W. J. M. Rankine in the 1860s) based on Ancient Greek ἀδιάβατος (adiábatos, “impassable”), used of terrain (rivers, forests) by Xenophon, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + διά (diá, “through”) + βατός (batós, “passable”), from βαίνω … The correct English form is adiabatic, spelled A-D-I-A-B-A-T-I-C.
Definition
- 1Without gain or loss of heat (and thus with no change in entropy, in the quasistatic approximation).
- 2Involving the slow change of the Hamiltonian of a system from its initial value to a final value.
Etymology
19th-century coinage (introduced by W. J. M. Rankine in the 1860s) based on Ancient Greek ἀδιάβατος (adiábatos, “impassable”), used of terrain (rivers, forests) by Xenophon, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + διά (diá, “through”) + βατός (batós, “passable”), from βαίνω (baínō, “to go”).
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “adiabatic”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-D-I-A-B-A-T-I-C - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌeɪ.dɪəˈbæt.ɪk/ (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
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.