authorities

noun

"authorities" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“authorities” has 15 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #2,326. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#2,326
frequency rank, English
3,931
“A” headwords
15
tracked misspellings

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The bodies that have political or administrative power and control in a particular sphere.

Corpus desk

Index EN-authorities · authorities · English

authorities · rank #2,326 · 15 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #2,326
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 15 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,931
  • PHOTO-FINISH ah

Nearest frequency peer: ah (-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.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “authorities”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “authorities” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for authorities
PropertyValue
Headwordauthorities
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters11
Frequency rank#2,326
Misspellings tracked15
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “authorities”

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).authoritieslands here:

#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. Same rarity band neighbours include “ah” (#2,325), “basically” (#2,327), “votes” (#2,324). Among 3,931 “A” headwords, “authorities” is #2,326. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 15 spelling variants around authorities, anoun. Corpus frequency is #2,326 among 3,931 “A” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for authorities, with forms such as "atuhorities", "auhtorities", and "authhorities". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is authorities, spelled A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-I-E-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    The bodies that have political or administrative power and control in a particular sphere.
  2. 2
    The bodies that enforce law and order or provide a public service.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. ICE arrested Old Orchard Beach Police Department reserve Officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on July 25, as part of the agency’s effort to step up immigration enforcement. Officials with the town and police department have said federal authorities previously told them Evans was legally authorized to work in the U.S.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • atuhorities
  • auhtorities
  • authhorities
  • authoirties
  • authoriites
  • authoriteis
  • authoritiess
  • authoritise
  • authoritties
  • authorrities
  • authortiies
  • authroities
  • autohrities
  • autthorities
  • uathorities

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of authorities - 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.

atuhorities2auhtorities2authhorities1authoirties2authoriites2authoriteis2authoritiess1authoritise2
Edit distance from "authorities"

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 "authorities"?
"authorities" is spelled A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-I-E-S.
What does "authorities" mean?
As a noun, "authorities" means: The bodies that have political or administrative power and control in a particular sphere.
What are common misspellings of "authorities"?
Common misspellings include "atuhorities", "auhtorities", "authhorities", "authoirties", "authoriites". The correct spelling is "authorities".
What language does "authorities" come from?
"authorities" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "authorities", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (15 here; floor ≥5).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list