excommunicate
/ˌɛkskəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/
"excommunicate" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“excommunicate” is an uncommon English word, ranked #77,660 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #77,660
- frequency rank, English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To officially exclude someone from membership of a church or religious community.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | excommunicate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˌɛkskəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Frequency rank | #77,660 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “excommunicate” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for excommunicate is 13 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌɛkskəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #77,660 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for excommunicate in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. 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.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ecclesiastical Latin excommunicātus, perfect passive participle of excommunicō (“excommunicate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). By surface analysis, ex- + communicate. The correct English form is excommunicate, spelled E-X-C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To officially exclude someone from membership of a church or religious community.
- 2To exclude from any other group; to banish.
Etymology
From Ecclesiastical Latin excommunicātus, perfect passive participle of excommunicō (“excommunicate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). By surface analysis, ex- + communicate.
Synonyms
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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Using “excommunicate”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-X-C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌɛkskəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.