athletically

adv

"athletically" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“athletically” is uncommon English (frequency #62,687 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#62,687
frequency rank, English
3,931
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In an athletic manner.

Corpus desk

Index EN-athletically · athletically · English

athletically · rank #62,687 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #62,687
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,931
  • PHOTO-FINISH attenuate

Nearest frequency peer: attenuate (+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 “athletically”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for athletically
PropertyValue
Headwordathletically
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdverb
Letters12
Frequency rank#62,687
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “athletically” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).athleticallyfalls in this rarity band:

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

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Rare peers in the same band: “attenuate” (#62,688), “Ashmore” (#62,685), “Ashkelon” (#62,684). Among 3,931 “A” headwords, “athletically” is #62,687. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

athletically is uncommon English at frequency #62,687 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In an athletic manner.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for athletically in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: From athletic + -ally. The correct English form is athletically, spelled A-T-H-L-E-T-I-C-A-L-L-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    In an athletic manner.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. An email from ICE headquarters to the agency’s top officials on October 5 lamented that “a considerable amount of athletically allergic candidates” had been showing up to the academy; they had “misrepresented” their physical condition on application forms. The email directed leaders at ICE’s field offices to conduct preliminary fitness exams with new recr…

Etymology

From athletic + -ally.

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

How do you spell "athletically"?
"athletically" is spelled A-T-H-L-E-T-I-C-A-L-L-Y.
What does "athletically" mean?
As an adverb, "athletically" means: In an athletic manner.
What is the origin of the word "athletically"?
From athletic + -ally. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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 "athletically", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list