cubism
/ˈkjuː.bɪz.əm/
"cubism" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cubism” is uncommon English (frequency #59,310 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,310
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An artistic movement in the early 20th Century characterized by the depiction of natural forms as geometric structures of planes.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cubism |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkjuː.bɪz.əm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #59,310 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cubism” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
cubism is uncommon English at frequency #59,310 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkjuː.bɪz.əm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An artistic movement in the early 20th Century characterized by the depiction of natural forms as geometric structures of planes.".
Zero misspellings are on record for cubism in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French cubisme. One story is that, in 1908, as a new canvas by Braque was being carried past, someone said, “Encore des cubes! assez de cubisme!”. The quotations below ascribe the coinage to Matisse. Sometimes attributed to French art critic Louis Vaux… The correct English form is cubism, spelled C-U-B-I-S-M.
Definition
- 1An artistic movement in the early 20th Century characterized by the depiction of natural forms as geometric structures of planes.
Etymology
From French cubisme. One story is that, in 1908, as a new canvas by Braque was being carried past, someone said, “Encore des cubes! assez de cubisme!”. The quotations below ascribe the coinage to Matisse. Sometimes attributed to French art critic Louis Vauxcelles who popularized the term. See also the word cube (from Latin cubus, from Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos)).
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 “cubism”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-U-B-I-S-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkjuː.bɪz.əm/ (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
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.