gibbous
/ˈɡɪbəs/
"gibbous" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gibbous” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Curved or bulged outward.
Corpus desk
Index EN-gibbous · gibbous · English
gibbous · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gibbous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɡɪbəs/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “gibbous” in English
Rare enough to double-check
gibbous is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈɡɪbəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for gibbous, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gibbous, from Latin gibbus (“humped, hunched”), probably cognate with cubō (“bend oneself, lie down”), Italian gobba (“humpback”), Ancient Greek κῡφός (kūphós, “humpback, bent”), κύβος (kúbos, “cube, vertebra”), Spanish giboso (“humped”)… The correct English form is gibbous, spelled G-I-B-B-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Curved or bulged outward.
- 2Having more than half (but not the whole) of its disc illuminated.
- 3Humpbacked.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how gibbous appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In fact, what these gibbous human shapes specially represented was ready money—money insistently ready [...]
The moving moon, full, gibbous, or crescent-shaped, shone at last for the navigators of the eighteenth century like a luminous hand on the clock of heaven.
Etymology
From Middle English gibbous, from Latin gibbus (“humped, hunched”), probably cognate with cubō (“bend oneself, lie down”), Italian gobba (“humpback”), Ancient Greek κῡφός (kūphós, “humpback, bent”), κύβος (kúbos, “cube, vertebra”), Spanish giboso (“humped”). Also ultimately compare dialectal Norwegian keiv (“slanted, wrong”), German schief (“crooked, slanting”) and Dutch scheef (“crooked, slanting”).
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.