back matter
"back-matter" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“back matter” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The parts of a book that appear after the main portion of the body text.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | back matter |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “back matter” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for back matter is 11 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The parts of a book that appear after the main portion of the body text.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for back matter, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 back matter, spelled B-A-C-K- -M-A-T-T-E-R.
Definition
- 1The parts of a book that appear after the main portion of the body text.
Synonyms
Antonyms
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "back matter"?
What does "back matter" mean?
What language does "back matter" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “back matter”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-C-K- -M-A-T-T-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.