boatman
"boatman" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“boatman” is uncommon English (frequency #52,812 among 31,241 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #52,812
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sailor on a small vessel (boat), particularly its captain.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | boatman |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #52,812 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “boatman” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
boatman is uncommon English at frequency #52,812 among 31,241 “B” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A sailor on a small vessel (boat), particularly its captain.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for boatman, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English boteman, botman, bateman. Equivalent to boat + -man. The correct English form is boatman, spelled B-O-A-T-M-A-N.
Definition
- 1A sailor on a small vessel (boat), particularly its captain.
Etymology
From Middle English boteman, botman, bateman. Equivalent to boat + -man.
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 “boatman”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-O-A-T-M-A-N - 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.