felonious
"felonious" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“felonious” is uncommon English (frequency #74,091 among 2,507 “F” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,091
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Of, relating to, being, or having the quality of felony.
Corpus desk
Index EN-felonious · felonious · English
felonious · rank #74,091 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #74,091
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH Fenian
Nearest frequency peer: Fenian (+1 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “felonious”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- exuding
exuding
25,915 corpus weight
- Fareham
Fareham
25,912 corpus weight
- felonious
felonious
25,910 corpus weight
- Fenian
Fenian
25,909 corpus weight
- fibrin
fibrin
25,907 corpus weight
- fingerless
fingerless
25,905 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “felonious” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | felonious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #74,091 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “felonious” in English
Rare enough to double-check
felonious is uncommon English at frequency #74,091 among 2,507 “F” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
felonious doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English *felonious (implied in feloniously; compare felonous); equivalent to felony + -ous. The correct English form is felonious, spelled F-E-L-O-N-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Of, relating to, being, or having the quality of felony.
- 2Done with intent to commit a crime.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how felonious appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The defendant must show that any bail money he hopes to post did not come from the felonious means.
O thievish Night, / Why should'st thou, but for some felonious end, / In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars?
Etymology
From Middle English *felonious (implied in feloniously; compare felonous); equivalent to felony + -ous.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "felonious", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).