altarpiece
/ˈɑl.təɹˌpis/
"altarpiece" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“altarpiece” is uncommon English (frequency #67,213 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #67,213
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - a work of art suspended above and behind an altar in a church
Corpus desk
Index EN-altarpiece · altarpiece · English
altarpiece · rank #67,213 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #67,213
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH ambushing
Nearest frequency peer: ambushing (+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 “altarpiece”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- AKC
AKC
32,793 corpus weight
- akuma
akuma
32,792 corpus weight
- altarpiece
altarpiece
32,788 corpus weight
- ambushing
ambushing
32,787 corpus weight
- Angeline
Angeline
32,785 corpus weight
- annotate
annotate
32,784 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “altarpiece” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | altarpiece |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɑl.təɹˌpis/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #67,213 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “altarpiece” in English
Rare enough to double-check
altarpiece is uncommon English at frequency #67,213 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɑl.təɹˌpis/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "a work of art suspended above and behind an altar in a church".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for altarpiece, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From altar + piece. The correct English form is altarpiece, spelled A-L-T-A-R-P-I-E-C-E.
Definition
- 1a work of art suspended above and behind an altar in a church
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how altarpiece appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I walked across the concrete to examine the altarpiece of the atomic age. A large crack ran through it.
“It’s this snaggletoothed, little bird-footed homunculus caricature,” Bourneuf said. “Many artists at this time were trying to make new altarpieces. Klee tended to take a very skeptical distance from the sort of grandiose projects of many of his expressionist peers, so I think it’s actually kind of mocking those hopes.”
Etymology
From altar + piece.
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 "altarpiece", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).