childline

noun

"childline" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“childline” is uncommon English (frequency #89,223 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#89,223
frequency rank, English
43,570
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A telephone counselling service for children and young people.

Key facts for childline
PropertyValue
Headwordchildline
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Frequency rank#89,223
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “childline” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). childline lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

childline is uncommon English at frequency #89,223 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A telephone counselling service for children and young people.".

childline has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From child + line, from the company name ChildLine. The correct English form is childline, spelled C-H-I-L-D-L-I-N-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    A telephone counselling service for children and young people.

Etymology

From child + line, from the company name ChildLine.

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 "childline"?
"childline" is spelled C-H-I-L-D-L-I-N-E.
What does "childline" mean?
As a noun, "childline" means: A telephone counselling service for children and young people.
What is the origin of the word "childline"?
From child + line, from the company name ChildLine. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “childline”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is C-H-I-L-D-L-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list