bungling
"bungling" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bungling” is uncommon English (frequency #65,757 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #65,757
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Incompetent or inept.
Corpus desk
Index EN-bungling · bungling · English
bungling · rank #65,757 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #65,757
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH bullhorn
Nearest frequency peer: bullhorn (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “bungling”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- bukkake
bukkake
34,246 corpus weight
- bullhorn
bullhorn
34,245 corpus weight
- bungling
bungling
34,244 corpus weight
- buzzkill
buzzkill
34,243 corpus weight
- Callisto
Callisto
34,242 corpus weight
- candidature
candidature
34,241 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “bungling” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bungling |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #65,757 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “bungling” in English
Rare enough to double-check
bungling is uncommon English at frequency #65,757 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Incompetent or inept.".
bungling has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. 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 the verb bungle. The correct English form is bungling, spelled B-U-N-G-L-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Incompetent or inept.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bungling appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Harry made a bungling attempt to catch the ball.
Well, he then decided to manufacture everything as in the human body. I'll show you in the museum the bungling attempt it took him ten years to produce. It was to have been a man, but it lived for three days only. Then up came young Rossum, an engineer. He was a wonderful fellow, Miss Glory. When he saw what a mess of it the old man was making, he said: "…
Etymology
From the verb bungle.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bungling", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).