adulteress

noun

"adulteress" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“adulteress” is uncommon English (frequency #90,117 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#90,117
frequency rank, English
3,931
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A female adulterer, a married woman or wife who commits adultery.

Corpus desk

Index EN-adulteress · adulteress · English

adulteress · rank #90,117 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #90,117
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,931
  • PHOTO-FINISH adjudicators

Nearest frequency peer: adjudicators (-2 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 “adulteress”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “adulteress” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for adulteress
PropertyValue
Headwordadulteress
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Frequency rank#90,117
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “adulteress” in English

This scale runs from the tiny cluster of words that carry ordinary speech (left) to the long tail of words almost nobody reaches for (right).adulteressfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Rare peers in the same band: “adjudicators” (#90,115), “Akbari” (#90,119), “Adebayo” (#90,114). Among 3,931 “A” headwords, “adulteress” is #90,117. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

adulteress is uncommon English at frequency #90,117 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A female adulterer, a married woman or wife who commits adultery.".

Zero misspellings are on record for adulteress in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. 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 adulter (noun) + -ess. In later use typically apprehended as the female equivalent corresponding to adulterer instead. The correct English form is adulteress, spelled A-D-U-L-T-E-R-E-S-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    A female adulterer, a married woman or wife who commits adultery.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how adulteress appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. And the righteous men, they shall iudge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their handes.

Etymology

From adulter (noun) + -ess. In later use typically apprehended as the female equivalent corresponding to adulterer instead.

Synonyms

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

How do you spell "adulteress"?
"adulteress" is spelled A-D-U-L-T-E-R-E-S-S.
What does "adulteress" mean?
As a noun, "adulteress" means: A female adulterer, a married woman or wife who commits adultery.
What is the origin of the word "adulteress"?
From adulter (noun) + -ess. In later use typically apprehended as the female equivalent corresponding to adulterer instead. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "adulteress", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list