cretin
/ˈkɹɛtɪn/
"cretin" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cretin” is uncommon English (frequency #56,034 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,034
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital hypothyroidism.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cretin · cretin · English
cretin · rank #56,034 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,034
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cranny
Nearest frequency peer: cranny (-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 “cretin”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Corsican
Corsican
43,973 corpus weight
- cortina
cortina
43,972 corpus weight
- cradling
cradling
43,969 corpus weight
- cranny
cranny
43,968 corpus weight
- cretin
cretin
43,967 corpus weight
- crosstown
crosstown
43,965 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “cretin” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cretin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɹɛtɪn/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #56,034 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “cretin” in English
Rare enough to double-check
cretin is uncommon English at frequency #56,034 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkɹɛtɪn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for cretin in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French crétin (“cretin, idiot”), likely from crestin, an Alpine dialectal form of chrétien, from Latin christiānus in the lost sense of “anyone in Christendom”, often with a sense of “poor fellow”. Doublet of Christian. The correct English form is cretin, spelled C-R-E-T-I-N.
Definition
- 1A person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital hypothyroidism.
- 2An idiot.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how cretin appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
When I challenged the symbolism, tried to make the professor consider the book as a piece of realism, he regarded me as if I were an absolute cretin. He got very supercilious and condescending […]
Etymology
From French crétin (“cretin, idiot”), likely from crestin, an Alpine dialectal form of chrétien, from Latin christiānus in the lost sense of “anyone in Christendom”, often with a sense of “poor fellow”. Doublet of Christian.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cretin", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).