gazetteer
/ˌɡæzəˈtɪə/
"gazetteer" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gazetteer” is uncommon English (frequency #57,402 among 18,276 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,402
- frequency rank, English
- 18,276
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person who writes for a gazette or newspaper; a journalist; (specifically) a journalist engaged by a government.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gazetteer |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌɡæzəˈtɪə/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #57,402 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gazetteer” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
gazetteer is uncommon English at frequency #57,402 among 18,276 “G” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˌɡæzəˈtɪə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
gazetteer has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is borrowed from French gazettier (archaic), gazetier (“journalist, newspaperman”) + English -eer (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people associated with or engaged in a specified activities). Gazettier, gazetier are derived from gazette (“news… The correct English form is gazetteer, spelled G-A-Z-E-T-T-E-E-R.
Definition
- 1A person who writes for a gazette or newspaper; a journalist; (specifically) a journalist engaged by a government.
- 2A gazette, a newspaper.
Etymology
The noun is borrowed from French gazettier (archaic), gazetier (“journalist, newspaperman”) + English -eer (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people associated with or engaged in a specified activities). Gazettier, gazetier are derived from gazette (“newspaper”) + -ier (suffix denoting a profession); and gazette from Italian gazzetta, from Venetan gazeta, from gazeta dele novità (literally “a gazeta of news”) (referring to the cost of the newspaper, a gazeta being a Venetian coin of little value, whence English gazet (obsolete)), possibly a diminutive of Latin gaza (“riches, treasure; treasury”), ultimately from Old Median *ganǰam (“treasure; wealth”). The English word is analysable as gazette + -eer. The verb is derived from the noun.
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 “gazetteer”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-A-Z-E-T-T-E-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌɡæzəˈtɪə/ (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.