ardour

noun

"ardour" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“ardour” is uncommon English (frequency #70,463 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#70,463
frequency rank, English
3,931
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - British, Canada, and Australia spelling of ardor.

Corpus desk

Index EN-ardour · ardour · English

ardour · rank #70,463 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #70,463
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,931
  • PHOTO-FINISH arbour

Nearest frequency peer: arbour (-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 “ardour”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “ardour” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for ardour
PropertyValue
Headwordardour
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters6
Frequency rank#70,463
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “ardour” in English

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right).ardourfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “arbour” (#70,462), “ascribes” (#70,464), “async” (#70,466). Among 3,931 “A” headwords, “ardour” is #70,463. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

ardour is uncommon English at frequency #70,463 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "British, Canada, and Australia spelling of ardor.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for ardour, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is ardour, spelled A-R-D-O-U-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    British, Canada, and Australia spelling of ardor.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how ardour appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. I rushed towards her, and embraced her with ardour; but the deathly languor and coldness of the limbs told me, that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished.
  2. The purpose of my visit, and the frightful abnormalities it postulated struck at me all at once with a chill sensation that nearly over-balanced my ardour for strange delvings.

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

How do you spell "ardour"?
"ardour" is spelled A-R-D-O-U-R.
What does "ardour" mean?
As a noun, "ardour" means: British, Canada, and Australia spelling of ardor.
What language does "ardour" come from?
"ardour" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ardour", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list