brainwashing
"brainwashing" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“brainwashing” has 19 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #31,461. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #31,461
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
- 19
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A form of indoctrination that forces people to abandon their beliefs in favour of another set of beliefs by conditioning through various forms of pressure or torture.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | brainwashing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #31,461 |
| Misspellings tracked | 19 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “brainwashing” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 19 spelling variants around brainwashing, anoun. Corpus frequency is #31,461 among 31,241 “B” headwords. Dominant gloss: "A form of indoctrination that forces people to abandon their beliefs in favour of another set of beliefs by conditioning through various forms of pressure or torture.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 19 likely wrong-spelling variants for brainwashing, with forms such as "barinwashing", "bbrainwashing", and "brainawshing". 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. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Calque of Chinese 洗腦 /洗脑 (xǐnǎo, literally “wash brain”). First use appears c. 1950. The correct English form is brainwashing, spelled B-R-A-I-N-W-A-S-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1A form of indoctrination that forces people to abandon their beliefs in favour of another set of beliefs by conditioning through various forms of pressure or torture.
Etymology
Calque of Chinese 洗腦 /洗脑 (xǐnǎo, literally “wash brain”). First use appears c. 1950.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- barinwashing
- bbrainwashing
- brainawshing
- brainnwashing
- brainwahsing
- brainwashhing
- brainwashign
- brainwashingg
- brainwashinng
- brainwashnig
- brainwasihng
- brainwasshing
- brainwsahing
- brainwwashing
- braiwnashing
- braniwashing
- brianwashing
- brrainwashing
- rbainwashing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of brainwashing - 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.
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 "brainwashing"?
What does "brainwashing" mean?
What are common misspellings of "brainwashing"?
What is the origin of the word "brainwashing"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “brainwashing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-R-A-I-N-W-A-S-H-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Same frequency band
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.