editor-in-chief

noun

"editor-in-chief" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“editor-in-chief” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
15
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative spelling of editor in chief.

Corpus desk

Index EN-editor-in-chief · editor-in-chief · English

editor-in-chief · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 15 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "E" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for editor-in-chief
PropertyValue
Headwordeditor-in-chief
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters15
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “editor-in-chief” in English

editor-in-chieffalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

editor-in-chief is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative spelling of editor in chief.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for editor-in-chief, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is editor-in-chief, spelled E-D-I-T-O-R---I-N---C-H-I-E-F.

Definition

  1. 1
    Alternative spelling of editor in chief.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how editor-in-chief appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. “He accused us of slandering him, presumably by implying he was a hipster, and of using the pic without his permission,” Gideon Lichfield, the Review’s editor-in-chief, explained Tuesday on Twitter.
  2. Maria Ressa, the chief executive and cofounder of Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, were named as this year’s laureates by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "editor-in-chief"?
"editor-in-chief" is spelled E-D-I-T-O-R---I-N---C-H-I-E-F.
What does "editor-in-chief" mean?
As a noun, "editor-in-chief" means: Alternative spelling of editor in chief.
What language does "editor-in-chief" come from?
"editor-in-chief" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list