glasnost
"glasnost" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“glasnost” is uncommon English (frequency #74,992 among 2,313 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,992
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - 1980s and early 1990s policy of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev to allow more government transparency; often paired with perestroika
Corpus desk
Index EN-glasnost · glasnost · English
glasnost · rank #74,992 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #74,992
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH gladden
Nearest frequency peer: gladden (-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 “glasnost”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Geoghegan
Geoghegan
25,013 corpus weight
- gestural
gestural
25,012 corpus weight
- gimlet
gimlet
25,011 corpus weight
- gladden
gladden
25,010 corpus weight
- glasnost
glasnost
25,009 corpus weight
- glomerular
glomerular
25,005 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “glasnost” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | glasnost |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #74,992 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “glasnost” in English
Rare enough to double-check
glasnost is uncommon English at frequency #74,992 among 2,313 “G” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "1980s and early 1990s policy of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev to allow more government transparency; often paired with perestroika".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for glasnost, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Russian гла́сность (glásnostʹ, “openness”). The correct English form is glasnost, spelled G-L-A-S-N-O-S-T.
Definition
- 11980s and early 1990s policy of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev to allow more government transparency; often paired with perestroika
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how glasnost appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Gorbachev would introduce glasnost (openness and freedom) and perestroika (economic restructuring) to Russia under his tenure, ultimately freeing thousands of political prisoners and dissidents and trying to address the shortages in food and goods that had become the hallmarks of the failing Soviet economy.
[Gorbachev] did not champion perestroika and glasnost alone; much of the nomenklatura had decided that the Soviet economic and social model was dysfunctional, corrupt and endemically inefficient and had to change.
Etymology
Borrowed from Russian гла́сность (glásnostʹ, “openness”).
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 "glasnost", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).