dowsing
"dowsing" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dowsing” is uncommon English (frequency #82,241 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #82,241
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The practice of seeking water or other substances (usually liquid) with the aid of a forked stick or similar pointing device, as believed by some practitioners to derive from supernatural power.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dowsing · dowsing · English
dowsing · rank #82,241 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #82,241
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH Doylestown
Nearest frequency peer: Doylestown (+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 “dowsing”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- documentari…
documentarian
17,763 corpus weight
- dowsing
dowsing
17,760 corpus weight
- Doylestown
Doylestown
17,759 corpus weight
- drippy
drippy
17,757 corpus weight
- dryad
dryad
17,756 corpus weight
- DTR
DTR
17,755 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “dowsing” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dowsing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #82,241 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “dowsing” in English
Rare enough to double-check
dowsing is uncommon English at frequency #82,241 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The practice of seeking water or other substances (usually liquid) with the aid of a forked stick or similar pointing device, as believed by some practitioners to derive from supernatural power.".
Zero misspellings are on record for dowsing in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: dowse + -ing The correct English form is dowsing, spelled D-O-W-S-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The practice of seeking water or other substances (usually liquid) with the aid of a forked stick or similar pointing device, as believed by some practitioners to derive from supernatural power.
Etymology
dowse + -ing
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "dowsing", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).