hankering
"hankering" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hankering” is uncommon English (frequency #52,365 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #52,365
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - present participle and gerund of hanker
Corpus desk
Index EN-hankering · hankering · English
hankering · rank #52,365 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #52,365
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH Hallie
Nearest frequency peer: Hallie (-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 “hankering”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Haddon
Haddon
47,640 corpus weight
- Haight
Haight
47,639 corpus weight
- Hallie
Hallie
47,637 corpus weight
- hankering
hankering
47,636 corpus weight
- Hannigan
Hannigan
47,635 corpus weight
- Harkin
Harkin
47,634 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “hankering” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| 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) |
Long-tail rank of “hankering” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hankering is uncommon English at frequency #52,365 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "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
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hankering appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"[…] You don't mean," Mr. Osborne continued, gathering wrath and astonishment as the thought now first came upon him; "you don't mean that he's such a d—— fool as to be still hankering after that swindling old bankrupt's daughter? […]"
One may say that hankering after naughty things is the very essence of the evil into which we have been precipitated by Adam's fall.
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 "hankering", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).