CAPTCHA
/ˈkæp.t͡ʃə/
"captcha" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“CAPTCHA” is uncommon English (frequency #59,263 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,263
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A computerized test requiring the human user to perform a task deemed to be difficult to automate, such as entering a displayed series of distorted characters or describing images, to demonstrate t...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | CAPTCHA |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæp.t͡ʃə/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #59,263 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “CAPTCHA” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
CAPTCHA is uncommon English at frequency #59,263 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkæp.t͡ʃə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A computerized test requiring the human user to perform a task deemed to be difficult to automate, such as entering a displayed series of distorted characters or describing images, to demonstrate t...".
No misspelling variants are generated for CAPTCHA in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: Coined by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 as a loose acronym of “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”. The correct English form is CAPTCHA, spelled C-A-P-T-C-H-A.
Definition
- 1A computerized test requiring the human user to perform a task deemed to be difficult to automate, such as entering a displayed series of distorted characters or describing images, to demonstrate that they are a human and not a computer program.
Etymology
Coined by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 as a loose acronym of “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”.
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 “CAPTCHA”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-P-T-C-H-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkæp.t͡ʃə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.