Catherine
/ˈkæθɹɪn/
"catherine" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Catherine” has 13 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #5,943. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #5,943
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A female given name from Ancient Greek.
Corpus desk
Index EN-catherine · Catherine · English
Catherine · rank #5,943 · 13 variants · 2 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,943
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 2 pairs
- VAR-HIGH 13 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cared
Nearest frequency peer: cared (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “Catherine”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- canon
canon
94,061 corpus weight
- cared
cared
94,059 corpus weight
- Catherine
Catherine
94,058 corpus weight
- chains
chains
94,057 corpus weight
- closure
closure
94,056 corpus weight
- cognitive
cognitive
94,055 corpus weight
What this shows “Catherine” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “Catherine”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 13 spelling variants around Catherine (IPA /ˈkæθɹɪn/), aproper noun. Corpus frequency is #5,943 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Dominant gloss: "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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Catherine appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
- - - despite of what you say of my fine name, I think my head is so obstinate and inflexible that the name Catherine was well chosen. It suits my character. I was given the name by the late Empress Elisabeth, to whom I owe much; she gave it to me out of affection and out of respect for her mother
It was named Catherine, but he never called it the name in full, as he had never called the first Catherine short, probably because Heathcliff had a habit of doing so. The little one was always Cathy, it formed to him a distinction from the mother, and yet, a connection with her;
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Catherine", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (13 here; floor ≥5).