bentonite
"bentonite" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bentonite” is uncommon English (frequency #59,892 among 31,241 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,892
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of several impure clay minerals consisting mostly of montmorillonite.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bentonite |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #59,892 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bentonite” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
bentonite is uncommon English at frequency #59,892 among 31,241 “B” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for bentonite, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Benton + -ite, after the place where it was first mined: Fort Benton, Montana. The correct English form is bentonite, spelled B-E-N-T-O-N-I-T-E.
Definition
- 1Any of several impure clay minerals consisting mostly of montmorillonite.
- 2A porous clay formed by the decomposition of volcanic ash that swells 5 to 6 times its original volume in the presence of water.
Etymology
From Benton + -ite, after the place where it was first mined: Fort Benton, Montana.
Synonyms
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
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Using “bentonite”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-N-T-O-N-I-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.