churchyard
/ˈt͡ʃɝt͡ʃ.jɑɹd/
"churchyard" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“churchyard” has 17 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #31,916. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #31,916
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 17
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A patch of land adjoining a church, often used as a graveyard.
Corpus desk
Index EN-churchyard · churchyard · English
churchyard · rank #31,916 · 17 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-MID #31,916
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-HIGH 17 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH chug
Nearest frequency peer: chug (-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 “churchyard”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- chatty
chatty
68,089 corpus weight
- chokes
chokes
68,088 corpus weight
- chug
chug
68,086 corpus weight
- churchyard
churchyard
68,085 corpus weight
- clapper
clapper
68,084 corpus weight
- clarion
clarion
68,083 corpus weight
What this shows “churchyard” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | churchyard |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈt͡ʃɝt͡ʃ.jɑɹd/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #31,916 |
| Misspellings tracked | 17 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “churchyard”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 17 spelling variants around churchyard (IPA /ˈt͡ʃɝt͡ʃ.jɑɹd/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #31,916 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Dominant gloss: "A patch of land adjoining a church, often used as a graveyard.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 17 likely wrong-spelling variants for churchyard, with forms such as "cchurchyard", "chhurchyard", and "chruchyard". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English churchyard, chirch-ȝerd, chircheȝerd (also kirk-ȝerd, kirkeyard > English kirkyard), equivalent to church + yard. Compare also Middle English kurk-garth, kyrkgarth, kirrkegærd, from Old Norse kirkjugarðr (“churchyard; graveyard”). Replac… The correct English form is churchyard, spelled C-H-U-R-C-H-Y-A-R-D.
Definition
- 1A patch of land adjoining a church, often used as a graveyard.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how churchyard appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
They said nothing further, but tramped on in the growing darkness, past farm steadings, into the little village, through the silent churchyard where generations of the Pallisers lay, and up the beech avenue that led to Northrop Hall.
Ayot St Lawrence's most famous inhabitant, George Bernard Shaw, moved into the New Rectory in 1906 because, it is said, of a gravestone epitaph in the churchyard. This recorded the death of a woman who lived to be 70 with the comment 'Her time was short'. Shaw thought that a place that considered a life of 70 years short was the right place for him.
Etymology
From Middle English churchyard, chirch-ȝerd, chircheȝerd (also kirk-ȝerd, kirkeyard > English kirkyard), equivalent to church + yard. Compare also Middle English kurk-garth, kyrkgarth, kirrkegærd, from Old Norse kirkjugarðr (“churchyard; graveyard”). Replaced Middle English chirchetoun from Old English ċirictūn (churchtown).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- cchurchyard
- chhurchyard
- chruchyard
- chucrhyard
- churcchyard
- churchayrd
- churchhyard
- churchyadr
- churchyardd
- churchyarrd
- churchyrad
- churchyyard
- churcyhard
- churhcyard
- churrchyard
- cuhrchyard
- hcurchyard
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of churchyard - 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 "churchyard", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (17 here; floor ≥5).