apatite
/ˈæpətaɪt/
"apatite" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“apatite” is an uncommon English word, ranked #74,725 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #74,725
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A calcium fluoride phosphate of variable composition, sometimes used in the manufacture of fertilizer, as a gemstone, and (in powdered form) as a pigment, and also produced biologically in bones an...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | apatite |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæpətaɪt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #74,725 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “apatite” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for apatite is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæpətaɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #74,725 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A calcium fluoride phosphate of variable composition, sometimes used in the manufacture of fertilizer, as a gemstone, and (in powdered form) as a pigment, and also produced biologically in bones an...".
Zero misspellings are on record for apatite in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From international scientific vocabulary, from German Apatit (“apatite”). Apatit was coined by the German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817), as follows: Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πᾰ́τη (ăpắtē, “deceit, fraud”) (as it is often mistaken for other minerals) +… The correct English form is apatite, spelled A-P-A-T-I-T-E.
Definition
- 1A calcium fluoride phosphate of variable composition, sometimes used in the manufacture of fertilizer, as a gemstone, and (in powdered form) as a pigment, and also produced biologically in bones and teeth.
Etymology
From international scientific vocabulary, from German Apatit (“apatite”). Apatit was coined by the German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817), as follows: Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πᾰ́τη (ăpắtē, “deceit, fraud”) (as it is often mistaken for other minerals) + German -it (suffix forming nouns denoting minerals or rocks; cognate with English -ite); the German word was first used in a 1786 book. Regarding minerals that were named for being deceptive and thus confused with others, compare also fool's gold.
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 “apatite”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-P-A-T-I-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈæpətaɪt/ (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.