gloaming
/ˈɡləʊ.mɪŋ/
"gloaming" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gloaming” is an uncommon English word, ranked #98,167 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #98,167
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Twilight, as at early morning (dawn) or (especially) early evening; dusk.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gloaming |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡləʊ.mɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #98,167 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gloaming” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gloaming is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡləʊ.mɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #98,167 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
gloaming doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: From a dialectal variant of glooming, from Middle English *gloming, from Old English glōmung, from Old English glōm (“twilight”). By surface analysis, gloom + -ing. Related to glow. The OED notes: "The vowel of the modern gloaming is anomalous, as Old Engli… The correct English form is gloaming, spelled G-L-O-A-M-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Twilight, as at early morning (dawn) or (especially) early evening; dusk.
- 2Sullenness; melancholy.
Etymology
From a dialectal variant of glooming, from Middle English *gloming, from Old English glōmung, from Old English glōm (“twilight”). By surface analysis, gloom + -ing. Related to glow. The OED notes: "The vowel of the modern gloaming is anomalous, as Old English glōmung should normally become glooming. The explanation is probably that the ō was shortened in the compound ǣfen-glommung (as the spelling seems to show was actually the case), and that from this compound there was evolved a new subject glŏmung, which by normal phonetic development became Middle English glǭming, modern English gloaming."
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 “gloaming”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-L-O-A-M-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɡləʊ.mɪŋ/ (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
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.