hankering
"hankering" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hankering” is an uncommon English word, ranked #52,365 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #52,365
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of hanker
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hankering |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #52,365 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hankering” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hankering is 9 letters long, classified as a verb. Corpus data places it at rank #52,365 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "present participle and gerund of hanker".
hankering has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is hankering, spelled H-A-N-K-E-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of hanker
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 “hankering”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-A-N-K-E-R-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.