colander
/ˈkɒləndə(ɹ)/
"colander" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“colander” is an uncommon English word, ranked #61,381 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #61,381
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A bowl-shaped kitchen utensil with holes in it used for draining food that has been cooking in water, such as pasta.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | colander |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɒləndə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #61,381 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “colander” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for colander is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkɒləndə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #61,381 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A bowl-shaped kitchen utensil with holes in it used for draining food that has been cooking in water, such as pasta.".
Zero misspellings are on record for colander in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English colyndore, coloundour, colonur, variants of Middle English culdor, culdore, culatre, ultimately from Latin cōlātōrium, from Latin cōlum. Cognates include Italian colino and Spanish colador. The correct English form is colander, spelled C-O-L-A-N-D-E-R.
Definition
- 1A bowl-shaped kitchen utensil with holes in it used for draining food that has been cooking in water, such as pasta.
Etymology
From Middle English colyndore, coloundour, colonur, variants of Middle English culdor, culdore, culatre, ultimately from Latin cōlātōrium, from Latin cōlum. Cognates include Italian colino and Spanish colador.
This word in other languages
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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Using “colander”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-L-A-N-D-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkɒləndə(ɹ)/ (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.