gamete
/ˈɡæmiːt/
"gamete" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gamete” is uncommon English (frequency #97,057 among 18,276 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #97,057
- frequency rank, English
- 18,276
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A reproductive cell (sperm in males or eggs in females), having only half of a complete set of chromosomes.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gamete |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡæmiːt/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #97,057 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gamete” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
gamete is uncommon English at frequency #97,057 among 18,276 “G” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɡæmiːt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A reproductive cell (sperm in males or eggs in females), having only half of a complete set of chromosomes.".
gamete doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek γαμετή (gametḗ, “wife”), γαμέτης (gamétēs, “husband”), ultimately from γάμος (gámos, “marriage”). The correct English form is gamete, spelled G-A-M-E-T-E.
Definition
- 1A reproductive cell (sperm in males or eggs in females), having only half of a complete set of chromosomes.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek γαμετή (gametḗ, “wife”), γαμέτης (gamétēs, “husband”), ultimately from γάμος (gámos, “marriage”).
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 “gamete”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-A-M-E-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɡæmiːt/ (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
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.