dengue
/ˈdɛŋ.ɡi/
"dengue" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dengue” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #31,502 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #31,502
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An acute febrile disease of the (sub)tropics caused by the Dengue virus, a flavivirus, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, and characterized by high fever, rash, headache, and severe muscle and joint ...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dengue |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɛŋ.ɡi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #31,502 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dengue” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dengue is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɛŋ.ɡi/. Corpus data places it at rank #31,502 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "An acute febrile disease of the (sub)tropics caused by the Dengue virus, a flavivirus, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, and characterized by high fever, rash, headache, and severe muscle and joint ...".
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for dengue, with forms such as "ddengue", "degnue", and "dengeu". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "dense", "Denise", "denote", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From West Indian Spanish dengue in 1828, from the Kiswahili term dinga (in full kidingapopo or kidinga pepo, "a kind of sudden cramp-like seizure caused by an evil spirit", dinga itself meaning sudden cramp-like seizure). The borrowed term changed to dengue… The correct English form is dengue, spelled D-E-N-G-U-E.
Definition
- 1An acute febrile disease of the (sub)tropics caused by the Dengue virus, a flavivirus, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, and characterized by high fever, rash, headache, and severe muscle and joint pain.
Etymology
From West Indian Spanish dengue in 1828, from the Kiswahili term dinga (in full kidingapopo or kidinga pepo, "a kind of sudden cramp-like seizure caused by an evil spirit", dinga itself meaning sudden cramp-like seizure). The borrowed term changed to dengue in Spanish due to this word existing in Spanish with the meaning "fastidiousness" and the folk etymology referring to the dislike of movement by affected patients of chikungunya which was also reffered to as dengue until the first half of the 20th century.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddengue,degnue,dengeu,denggue,denngue,denuge,dnegue,edngue
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dengue - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “dengue”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-E-N-G-U-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈdɛŋ.ɡi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “dense” - see the side-by-side comparison. dengue vs dense
- 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.