Catherine
/ˈkæθɹɪn/
"catherine" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Catherine” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,943 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #5,943
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A female given name from Ancient Greek.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Catherine |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæθɹɪn/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #5,943 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Catherine” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Catherine is 9 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkæθɹɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,943 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A female given name from Ancient Greek.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for Catherine, with forms such as "actherine", "cahterine", and "catehrine". 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 also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "catering", "Catharine", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French Catherine, from Ancient Greek Αἰκατερίνη (Aikaterínē), *Ἑκατερίνη (*Hekaterínē), of debated meaning, possibly from ἑκάτερος (hekáteros, “each of the two”), or from the name of the goddess Hecate. The apheresis of the first syllable as w… The correct English form is Catherine, spelled C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1A female given name from Ancient Greek.
Etymology
Borrowed from French Catherine, from Ancient Greek Αἰκατερίνη (Aikaterínē), *Ἑκατερίνη (*Hekaterínē), of debated meaning, possibly from ἑκάτερος (hekáteros, “each of the two”), or from the name of the goddess Hecate. The apheresis of the first syllable as well as the spelling with ⟨th⟩ in Latin languages, German and English, is due to a folk etymology, dating from Roman times, which associated the name with the Ancient Greek καθαρός (katharós, “pure”). The name belonged to a 4th-century saint and martyr from Alexandria who was supposedly tortured on the wheel from where the term Catherine wheel originates.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: actherine,cahterine,catehrine,catheirne,catherien,catherinne,cathernie,catherrine,cathherine,cathreine,cattherine,ccatherine,ctaherine
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Catherine - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "Catherine"?
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Using “Catherine”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkæθɹɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “catering” - see the side-by-side comparison. Catherine vs catering
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.