chancellor
/ˈtʃɑːnsələ/
"chancellor" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chancellor” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,767 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,767
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A senior secretary or official with administrative or legal duties, sometimes in charge of some area of government such as finance or justice.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chancellor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtʃɑːnsələ/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #5,767 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “chancellor” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chancellor is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtʃɑːnsələ/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,767 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for chancellor, with forms such as "cahncellor", "cchancellor", and "chacnellor". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Anglo-Norman or Middle English chaunceler, chanceler, canceler (“chief administrative or executive officer of a ruler; chancellor, secretary; private secretary, scribe; Lord Chancellor of England; officer of the ruler's exchequer; a high administrative… The correct English form is chancellor, spelled C-H-A-N-C-E-L-L-O-R.
Definition
- 1A senior secretary or official with administrative or legal duties, sometimes in charge of some area of government such as finance or justice.
- 2A senior secretary or official with administrative or legal duties, sometimes in charge of some area of government such as finance or justice.
- 3The head of the government in some German-speaking countries.
- 4A senior record keeper of a cathedral; a senior legal officer for a bishop or diocese in charge of hearing cases involving ecclesiastical law.
- 5The head of a university, sometimes purely ceremonial.
- 6The foreman of a jury.
- 7The chief judge of a court of chancery (that is, one exercising equity jurisdiction).
- 8A fairy chess piece which combines the moves of the rook and the knight.
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman or Middle English chaunceler, chanceler, canceler (“chief administrative or executive officer of a ruler; chancellor, secretary; private secretary, scribe; Lord Chancellor of England; officer of the ruler's exchequer; a high administrative or executive officer (for example, a deputy or representative of a bishop; the head of a university)”), from Old French cancelier, chancelier (“chancellor”), from Late Latin cancellārius (“secretary; doorkeeper, porter; usher of a court of law stationed at the bars separating the public from the judges”), from Latin cancellī (plural of cancellus (“grate; bars, barrier; railings”), diminutive of cancer (“grid; barrier”), from Proto-Italic *karkros (“enclosure”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn”)) + -ārius (suffix forming nouns denoting an agent of use). The word was present as Late Old English canceler, cancheler, from Norman cancheler, but was displaced in the 13th century by the Old French and Anglo-Norman forms mentioned above.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cahncellor,cchancellor,chacnellor,chanccellor,chancellorr,chancellro,chancelolr,chancelor,chanclelor,chanecllor,channcellor,chhancellor,chnacellor,hcancellor
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of chancellor - 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 "chancellor"?
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Using “chancellor”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-H-A-N-C-E-L-L-O-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈtʃɑːnsələ/ (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
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.