crosstalk
"crosstalk" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crosstalk” is uncommon English (frequency #61,395 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #61,395
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Undesirable signals from a neighbouring transmission circuit; undesired coupling between circuits.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crosstalk |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #61,395 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “crosstalk” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
crosstalk is uncommon English at frequency #61,395 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
crosstalk doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From cross- + talk. Usage in reference to the Chinese comedic performance is probably a loose calque from Chinese 相聲／相声 (xiàngsheng). The correct English form is crosstalk, spelled C-R-O-S-S-T-A-L-K.
Definition
- 1Undesirable signals from a neighbouring transmission circuit; undesired coupling between circuits.
- 2The situation where one or more components of a signal transduction pathway affect another pathway.
- 3Conversation that is incidental to the topic under discussion.
- 4A traditional Chinese comedic performance in the form of a dialogue.
- 5Communication between parties who have extremely different perspectives.
Etymology
From cross- + talk. Usage in reference to the Chinese comedic performance is probably a loose calque from Chinese 相聲／相声 (xiàngsheng).
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 “crosstalk”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-R-O-S-S-T-A-L-K - 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.