downtempo
"downtempo" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“downtempo” is an uncommon English word, ranked #85,193 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #85,193
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A genre of house music and ambient music with an ethereal sound and a driving beat.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | downtempo |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #85,193 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “downtempo” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for downtempo is 9 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #85,193 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A genre of house music and ambient music with an ethereal sound and a driving beat.".
Zero misspellings are on record for downtempo in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From down + tempo. The correct English form is downtempo, spelled D-O-W-N-T-E-M-P-O.
Definition
- 1A genre of house music and ambient music with an ethereal sound and a driving beat.
Etymology
From down + tempo.
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 “downtempo”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-O-W-N-T-E-M-P-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.