ginkgo
/ˈɡɪŋ.kəʊ/
"ginkgo" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ginkgo” is uncommon English (frequency #60,115 among 18,276 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,115
- frequency rank, English
- 18,276
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Ginkgo biloba, a tree native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ginkgo |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡɪŋ.kəʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #60,115 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ginkgo” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
ginkgo is uncommon English at frequency #60,115 among 18,276 “G” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɡɪŋ.kəʊ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for ginkgo, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Japanese 銀杏 (ginkyō), from Chinese 銀杏／银杏 (yínxìng, “silver apricot”). Ginkgo is the name that is printed in Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V … (1712) authored by Engelbert Kaempfer, the first Westerner to see the species. I… The correct English form is ginkgo, spelled G-I-N-K-G-O.
Definition
- 1Ginkgo biloba, a tree native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds.
- 2The seed of a ginkgo tree.
Etymology
From Japanese 銀杏 (ginkyō), from Chinese 銀杏／银杏 (yínxìng, “silver apricot”). Ginkgo is the name that is printed in Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V … (1712) authored by Engelbert Kaempfer, the first Westerner to see the species. In his way of transcription ginkyo would have been Ginkjo or Ginkio but was printed as Ginkgo. This was read by Carl Linnaeus, and the misspelling stuck.
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 “ginkgo”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-I-N-K-G-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɡɪŋ.kəʊ/ (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.