Compostela
"compostela" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Compostela” is uncommon English (frequency #68,949 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #68,949
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Ellipsis of Santiago de Compostela: a city in Galicia, Spain, a major Christian pilgrimage site.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Compostela |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #68,949 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Compostela” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
Compostela is uncommon English at frequency #68,949 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as aproper noun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Ellipsis of Santiago de Compostela: a city in Galicia, Spain, a major Christian pilgrimage site.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Compostela, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Spanish Compostela, from Galician Compostela, from Latin compositella (“the little well-organized one”), from composita (“put together, arranged”) + -ella (“-elle: forming diminutives”), from compōnere (“to put together”), from con- (“with, together”) … The correct English form is Compostela, spelled C-O-M-P-O-S-T-E-L-A.
Definition
- 1Ellipsis of Santiago de Compostela: a city in Galicia, Spain, a major Christian pilgrimage site.
Etymology
From Spanish Compostela, from Galician Compostela, from Latin compositella (“the little well-organized one”), from composita (“put together, arranged”) + -ella (“-elle: forming diminutives”), from compōnere (“to put together”), from con- (“with, together”) + pōnere (“to put, to place”), q.v.
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 “Compostela”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-M-P-O-S-T-E-L-A - 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.