dictaphone
/ˈdɪktəfəʊn/
"dictaphone" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dictaphone” is uncommon English (frequency #83,186 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #83,186
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A dictation machine.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dictaphone · dictaphone · English
dictaphone · rank #83,186 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #83,186
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH diphosphate
Nearest frequency peer: diphosphate (+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 “dictaphone”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- dictaphone
dictaphone
16,815 corpus weight
- diphosphate
diphosphate
16,814 corpus weight
- discotheque
discotheque
16,812 corpus weight
- discourteous
discourteous
16,811 corpus weight
- dither
dither
16,810 corpus weight
- doff
doff
16,809 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “dictaphone” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dictaphone |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɪktəfəʊn/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #83,186 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “dictaphone” in English
Rare enough to double-check
dictaphone is uncommon English at frequency #83,186 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈdɪktəfəʊn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A dictation machine.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for dictaphone, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Early 20th century, originally a trademarked name for a type of dictation machine, presumably from dictate and -phone. The correct English form is dictaphone, spelled D-I-C-T-A-P-H-O-N-E.
Definition
- 1A dictation machine.
Etymology
Early 20th century, originally a trademarked name for a type of dictation machine, presumably from dictate and -phone.
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 "dictaphone", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).