counterinsurgency
"counterinsurgency" is a 17-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“counterinsurgency” is uncommon English (frequency #51,038 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #51,038
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any political or military action taken to defeat insurgency, especially during guerrilla warfare.
Corpus desk
Index EN-counterinsurgency · counterinsurgency · English
counterinsurgency · rank #51,038 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #51,038
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH costed
Nearest frequency peer: costed (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “counterinsurgency”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Connacht
Connacht
48,967 corpus weight
- cornfield
cornfield
48,966 corpus weight
- costed
costed
48,964 corpus weight
- counterinsu…
counterinsurgency
48,963 corpus weight
- criminaliza…
criminalization
48,959 corpus weight
- cropper
cropper
48,958 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “counterinsurgency” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | counterinsurgency |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Frequency rank | #51,038 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “counterinsurgency” in English
Rare enough to double-check
counterinsurgency is uncommon English at frequency #51,038 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any political or military action taken to defeat insurgency, especially during guerrilla warfare.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for counterinsurgency, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: From counter- + insurgency. The correct English form is counterinsurgency, spelled C-O-U-N-T-E-R-I-N-S-U-R-G-E-N-C-Y.
Definition
- 1Any political or military action taken to defeat insurgency, especially during guerrilla warfare.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how counterinsurgency appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The United States will continue to pursue a military and civilian counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
Mr. Petraeus almost single-handedly forced a profound evolution in the country’s military thinking and doctrine with his philosophy of counterinsurgency, focused more on protecting the civilian population than on killing enemies.
Etymology
From counter- + insurgency.
Synonyms
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 "counterinsurgency", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 17 letters (nearest by frequency rank).