anopheles
/əˈnɒfɪliːz/
"anopheles" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“anopheles” is uncommon English (frequency #63,420 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,420
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.
Corpus desk
Index EN-anopheles · anopheles · English
anopheles · rank #63,420 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #63,420
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH approvingly
Nearest frequency peer: approvingly (+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 “anopheles”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Ameen
Ameen
36,585 corpus weight
- anopheles
anopheles
36,581 corpus weight
- approvingly
approvingly
36,579 corpus weight
- apse
apse
36,578 corpus weight
- arboreal
arboreal
36,577 corpus weight
- ardor
ardor
36,576 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “anopheles” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | anopheles |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈnɒfɪliːz/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #63,420 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “anopheles” in English
Rare enough to double-check
anopheles is uncommon English at frequency #63,420 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /əˈnɒfɪliːz/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for anopheles, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from translingual Anopheles (“genus of mosquitoes”), coined by the German entomologist Johann Wilhelm Meigen (1764–1845), from Ancient Greek ἀνωφελής (anōphelḗs, “unprofitable, useless; hurtful, prejudicial”), from ἀν- (an-) (a variant of ᾰ̓- (ă-, … The correct English form is anopheles, spelled A-N-O-P-H-E-L-E-S.
Definition
- 1A mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how anopheles appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Analogy with the malaria-carrying mosquito points to the various kinds of anopheles, and perhaps to some species of the ordinary mosquito or culex, as being possible bearers of the disease.
[T]he whole business was a silly mistake due to a murderous-mouthed ignorance of the ease with which the same result could have been obtained by inoculation with anopheles vaccine and stegomyia emulsion.
Etymology
Borrowed from translingual Anopheles (“genus of mosquitoes”), coined by the German entomologist Johann Wilhelm Meigen (1764–1845), from Ancient Greek ἀνωφελής (anōphelḗs, “unprofitable, useless; hurtful, prejudicial”), from ἀν- (an-) (a variant of ᾰ̓- (ă-, prefix forming terms having senses opposite to stems or terms to which it is attached)) + ὄφελος (óphelos, “advantage, benefit, good”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰel-) + -ης (-ēs, suffix forming third-declension adjectives). Doublet of Ophelia
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "anopheles", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).