curtsy
"curtsy" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“curtsy” is uncommon English (frequency #89,272 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,272
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Alternative spelling of curtsey.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | curtsy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #89,272 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “curtsy” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
curtsy is uncommon English at frequency #89,272 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative spelling of curtsey.".
curtsy doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is curtsy, spelled C-U-R-T-S-Y.
Definition
- 1Alternative spelling of curtsey.
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 “curtsy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-U-R-T-S-Y - 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.