aphid
/ˈeɪ.fɪd/
"aphid" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“aphid” is uncommon English (frequency #59,862 among 35,202 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,862
- frequency rank, English
- 35,202
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sap-sucking insect pest of the superfamily Aphidoidea; an aphidian.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | aphid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈeɪ.fɪd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #59,862 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “aphid” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
aphid is uncommon English at frequency #59,862 among 35,202 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈeɪ.fɪd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A sap-sucking insect pest of the superfamily Aphidoidea; an aphidian.".
aphid has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From New Latin aphis (plural aphides), coined by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. His inspiration for the name remains unclear; OED suggests it might stem from a misreading of Ancient Greek κορις (koris, “bug”) (see diagram), in which case the nom… The correct English form is aphid, spelled A-P-H-I-D.
Definition
- 1A sap-sucking insect pest of the superfamily Aphidoidea; an aphidian.
Etymology
From New Latin aphis (plural aphides), coined by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. His inspiration for the name remains unclear; OED suggests it might stem from a misreading of Ancient Greek κορις (koris, “bug”) (see diagram), in which case the nominative -ις (-is) suffix was reanalyzed as -ις, -ιδος (-is, -idos); while AHD suggests a connection to Ancient Greek ἀφειδής (apheidḗs, “unsparing, lavishly borrowed”) in reference to the insects' voracity or rapid rate of production, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + φείδομαι (pheídomai, “to spare, be thrifty, be merciful”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). Doublet of aphis.
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.
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Using “aphid”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-P-H-I-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈeɪ.fɪd/ (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
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.