consultant
/kənˈsʌl.tənt/
"consultant" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“consultant” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,775 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,775
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 16
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person or party that is consulted.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | consultant |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kənˈsʌl.tənt/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #5,775 |
| Misspellings tracked | 16 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “consultant” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for consultant is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kənˈsʌl.tənt/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,775 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 16 likely wrong-spelling variants for consultant, with forms such as "cconsultant", "cnosultant", and "connsultant". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "consulting", "constant", "consultancy", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French consultant, present participle of consulter, from Latin cōnsultāre (“to deliberate, consult”), frequentative of cōnsulere (“to consult, deliberate, consider, reflect upon, ask advice”), from com- (“together”) + -sulere, of uncertain origin. The correct English form is consultant, spelled C-O-N-S-U-L-T-A-N-T.
Definition
- 1A person or party that is consulted.
- 2A person whose occupation is to be consulted for their expertise, advice, service or help in an area or specialty; a party whose business is to be similarly consulted.
- 3A senior hospital-based physician or surgeon who has completed all specialist training and has been placed on the specialist register in their chosen speciality, roughly equivalent to an attending physician in North America.
Etymology
From French consultant, present participle of consulter, from Latin cōnsultāre (“to deliberate, consult”), frequentative of cōnsulere (“to consult, deliberate, consider, reflect upon, ask advice”), from com- (“together”) + -sulere, of uncertain origin.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cconsultant,cnosultant,connsultant,conslutant,conssultant,consulatnt,consulltant,consultannt,consultantt,consultatn,consultnat,consulttant,consutlant,conusltant,cosnultant,ocnsultant
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of consultant - 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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Using “consultant”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-N-S-U-L-T-A-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kənˈsʌl.tənt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “consulting” - see the side-by-side comparison. consultant vs consulting
- 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.