excessive
/ɪkˈsɛsɪv/
"excessive" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“excessive” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,881 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #5,881
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Exceeding the usual bounds of something; too much (of amount); extravagant; immoderate.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | excessive |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɪkˈsɛsɪv/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #5,881 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “excessive” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for excessive is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪkˈsɛsɪv/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,881 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Exceeding the usual bounds of something; too much (of amount); extravagant; immoderate.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for excessive, with forms such as "ecxessive", "exccessive", and "excesisve". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "expensive", "exclusive", "extensive", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English excessive, excessif, from Old French excessif, from Medieval Latin excessivus, equivalent to excess + -ive. The correct English form is excessive, spelled E-X-C-E-S-S-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1Exceeding the usual bounds of something; too much (of amount); extravagant; immoderate.
Etymology
From Middle English excessive, excessif, from Old French excessif, from Medieval Latin excessivus, equivalent to excess + -ive.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ecxessive,exccessive,excesisve,excesive,excessiev,excessivve,excessvie,excsesive,execssive,exxcessive,xecessive
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of excessive - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “excessive”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-X-C-E-S-S-I-V-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɪkˈsɛsɪv/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “expensive” - see the side-by-side comparison. excessive vs expensive
- 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.