fellatio
/fəˈleɪ.ʃi.əʊ/
"fellatio" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fellatio” is an uncommon English word, ranked #53,538 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #53,538
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Performance of oral sex upon the penis.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fellatio |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fəˈleɪ.ʃi.əʊ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #53,538 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fellatio” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fellatio is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fəˈleɪ.ʃi.əʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #53,538 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Performance of oral sex upon the penis.".
fellatio has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)- Latin fellō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin fellātiōlbor. English fellatio Learned borrowing from Latin fellātiō, from fellātus, perfect participle of fellō (“I suck, I fellate”… The correct English form is fellatio, spelled F-E-L-L-A-T-I-O.
Definition
- 1Performance of oral sex upon the penis.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)- Latin fellō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin fellātiōlbor. English fellatio Learned borrowing from Latin fellātiō, from fellātus, perfect participle of fellō (“I suck, I fellate”). The word started to appear in medical literature in the 19th century but it was still treated as Latin. In 1919, the California Supreme Court struck down a law criminalizing fellatio because the state constitution required laws to be written in English. By the late 20th century, fellatio was treated as an English word.
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 “fellatio”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-E-L-L-A-T-I-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fəˈleɪ.ʃi.əʊ/ (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.