apathy
/ˈæ.pə.θi/
"apathy" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“apathy” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #20,555 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #20,555
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Lack of emotion or motivation; lack of interest or enthusiasm towards something; disinterest (in something).
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | apathy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæ.pə.θi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #20,555 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “apathy” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for apathy is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæ.pə.θi/. Corpus data places it at rank #20,555 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Lack of emotion or motivation; lack of interest or enthusiasm towards something; disinterest (in something).".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for apathy, with forms such as "aapthy", "apahty", and "apathhy". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "aptly", "Apache", "Agatha", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French apathie, from Latin apathīa, from Ancient Greek ἀπάθεια (apátheia, “impassibility”, “insensibility”, “freedom from emotion”), from ἀπαθής (apathḗs, “not suffering or having suffered”, “without experience of”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + πάθος (páthos… The correct English form is apathy, spelled A-P-A-T-H-Y.
Definition
- 1Lack of emotion or motivation; lack of interest or enthusiasm towards something; disinterest (in something).
Etymology
From French apathie, from Latin apathīa, from Ancient Greek ἀπάθεια (apátheia, “impassibility”, “insensibility”, “freedom from emotion”), from ἀπαθής (apathḗs, “not suffering or having suffered”, “without experience of”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + πάθος (páthos, “anything that befalls one”, “incident”, “emotion”, “passion”). Doublet of apatheia, which was borrowed directly from Ancient Greek.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aapthy,apahty,apathhy,apathyy,apatthy,apatyh,appathy,aptahy,paathy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of apathy - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “apathy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-P-A-T-H-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈæ.pə.θi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “aptly” - see the side-by-side comparison. apathy vs aptly
- 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.