crotchety
/ˈkɹɒtʃ.ə.tɪ/
"crotchety" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crotchety” is an uncommon English word, ranked #89,266 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #89,266
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Cranky, disagreeable, or stubborn, especially if prone to odd whims or fancies.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crotchety |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈkɹɒtʃ.ə.tɪ/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #89,266 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “crotchety” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for crotchety is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkɹɒtʃ.ə.tɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #89,266 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Cranky, disagreeable, or stubborn, especially if prone to odd whims or fancies.".
crotchety doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From crotchet + -y, using crotchet in the 16th-century sense of a whim or fancy. The correct English form is crotchety, spelled C-R-O-T-C-H-E-T-Y.
Definition
- 1Cranky, disagreeable, or stubborn, especially if prone to odd whims or fancies.
Etymology
From crotchet + -y, using crotchet in the 16th-century sense of a whim or fancy.
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 “crotchety”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-R-O-T-C-H-E-T-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkɹɒtʃ.ə.tɪ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.