fatuous
/ˈfæt.ju.əs/
"fatuous" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fatuous” is an uncommon English word, ranked #72,304 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #72,304
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Obnoxiously stupid; vacantly silly; content in one's foolishness.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fatuous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈfæt.ju.əs/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #72,304 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fatuous” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fatuous is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈfæt.ju.əs/. Corpus data places it at rank #72,304 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Obnoxiously stupid; vacantly silly; content in one's foolishness.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for fatuous, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin fatuus (“foolish, silly, simple”). The correct English form is fatuous, spelled F-A-T-U-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Obnoxiously stupid; vacantly silly; content in one's foolishness.
Etymology
From Latin fatuus (“foolish, silly, simple”).
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.
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Using “fatuous”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-A-T-U-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈfæt.ju.əs/ (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.