chequered
"chequered" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chequered” is uncommon English (frequency #51,608 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #51,608
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative spelling of checkered.
Corpus desk
Index EN-chequered · chequered · English
chequered · rank #51,608 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #51,608
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH chine
Nearest frequency peer: chine (+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 “chequered”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- cavalcade
cavalcade
48,398 corpus weight
- cerebrospin…
cerebrospinal
48,397 corpus weight
- Ceredigion
Ceredigion
48,396 corpus weight
- chequered
chequered
48,393 corpus weight
- chine
chine
48,392 corpus weight
- choosy
choosy
48,391 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “chequered” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chequered |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #51,608 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “chequered” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
chequered is uncommon English at frequency #51,608 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative spelling of checkered.".
Zero misspellings are on record for chequered in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is chequered, spelled C-H-E-Q-U-E-R-E-D.
Definition
- 1Alternative spelling of checkered.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chequered appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The trees lay on one side the road in a rich depth of shadow; on the other the golden light seemed to rain through the chequered boughs: a subtle fragrance floated on the air, and the carols of a thousand birds rose distinct above the deep murmur of the city that they had left behind.
The history of cast iron in railway bridges is much more grimly chequered. Brunel's misgivings were proved prudent, tragically, in the 1879 failure of Thomas Bouch's Tay bridge (once a monument to cast iron, now a memorial to many lives lost).
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.
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "chequered", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).