foundling
"foundling" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“foundling” is uncommon English (frequency #58,704 among 2,507 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #58,704
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An abandoned child, left by its parent(s), often a baby left at a convent or similar safe place.
Corpus desk
Index EN-foundling · foundling · English
foundling · rank #58,704 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #58,704
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH forevermore
Nearest frequency peer: forevermore (-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 “foundling”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- fleeced
fleeced
41,303 corpus weight
- foamy
foamy
41,299 corpus weight
- forevermore
forevermore
41,298 corpus weight
- foundling
foundling
41,297 corpus weight
- freemium
freemium
41,294 corpus weight
- frivolity
frivolity
41,292 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “foundling” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | foundling |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #58,704 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “foundling” in English
Rare enough to double-check
foundling is uncommon English at frequency #58,704 among 2,507 “F” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An abandoned child, left by its parent(s), often a baby left at a convent or similar safe place.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for foundling, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English foundlyng, fondeyng, variants of Middle English fyndling, fyndlyng. By surface analysis, found + -ling. The correct English form is foundling, spelled F-O-U-N-D-L-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1An abandoned child, left by its parent(s), often a baby left at a convent or similar safe place.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how foundling appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
foundling hospital
In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by parish charities, the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people.
Etymology
From Middle English foundlyng, fondeyng, variants of Middle English fyndling, fyndlyng. By surface analysis, found + -ling.
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 "foundling", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).