diatonic
"diatonic" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“diatonic” is uncommon English (frequency #73,126 among 26,416 “D” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,126
- frequency rank, English
- 26,416
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Relating to or characteristic of a musical scale which contains seven pitches and a pattern of five whole tones and two semitones; particularly, of the major or natural minor scales.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | diatonic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #73,126 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “diatonic” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
diatonic is uncommon English at frequency #73,126 among 26,416 “D” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Relating to or characteristic of a musical scale which contains seven pitches and a pattern of five whole tones and two semitones; particularly, of the major or natural minor scales.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for diatonic in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French diatonique or Late Latin diatonicus, ultimately from Ancient Greek διατονικός (diatonikós), in the phrase [γένος (génos, “type, genus”)] διατονικός (diatonikós) (in reference to the diatonic tetrachord, and in contrast to the chromatic and enhar… The correct English form is diatonic, spelled D-I-A-T-O-N-I-C.
Definition
- 1Relating to or characteristic of a musical scale which contains seven pitches and a pattern of five whole tones and two semitones; particularly, of the major or natural minor scales.
Etymology
From French diatonique or Late Latin diatonicus, ultimately from Ancient Greek διατονικός (diatonikós), in the phrase [γένος (génos, “type, genus”)] διατονικός (diatonikós) (in reference to the diatonic tetrachord, and in contrast to the chromatic and enharmonic tetrachords), from διάτονος (diátonos) (διά (diá) + τόνος (tónos)), of disputed etymology, as both components are ambiguous. Most plausibly, διάτονος (diátonos) refers to “stretched intervals”, as the intervals of the diatonic tetrachord are the most evenly distributed or “stretched out”, compared to the chromatic and enharmonic tetrads, which use smaller, more crowded together intervals. Compare pyknon, from πυκνός (puknós, “dense, compressed”), referring to the lower part of the non-diatonic tetrachords: the diatonic tetrachord has widely spaced notes (“stretched out”), while the other tetrachords have a closely spaced notes (“compressed”).
Antonyms
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
How do you spell "diatonic"?
What does "diatonic" mean?
What is the origin of the word "diatonic"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “diatonic”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-I-A-T-O-N-I-C - 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.