culpa
/ˈkʊlpə/
"culpa" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“culpa” is uncommon English (frequency #51,049 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #51,049
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart.
Corpus desk
Index EN-culpa · culpa · English
culpa · rank #51,049 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #51,049
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cuddy
Nearest frequency peer: cuddy (-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 “culpa”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- crowing
crowing
48,957 corpus weight
- cuddy
cuddy
48,953 corpus weight
- culpa
culpa
48,952 corpus weight
- cuneiform
cuneiform
48,951 corpus weight
- cuttlefish
cuttlefish
48,950 corpus weight
- Davina
Davina
48,948 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “culpa” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | culpa |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkʊlpə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #51,049 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “culpa” in English
Rare enough to double-check
culpa is uncommon English at frequency #51,049 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkʊlpə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart.".
culpa has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Latin culpa. The correct English form is culpa, spelled C-U-L-P-A.
Definition
- 1Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how culpa appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Every actual delict presupposes a dolus or culpa, with the concomitant consciousness and prepense
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin culpa.
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 "culpa", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).