harvestman
"harvestman" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“harvestman” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A male harvester; any harvester (person who works to gather in the crops at harvest time).
Corpus desk
Index EN-harvestman · harvestman · English
harvestman · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | harvestman |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “harvestman” in English
Rare enough to double-check
harvestman is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for harvestman in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From harvest + -man. (sense 2): There are various hypotheses and folk etymologies for why the arachnids are called harvestmen, but the most likely explanation is the shape of their legs, which resemble sickles or scythes. More information The association wi… The correct English form is harvestman, spelled H-A-R-V-E-S-T-M-A-N.
Definition
- 1A male harvester; any harvester (person who works to gather in the crops at harvest time).
- 2An order of terrestrial, non-venomous arachnids with often very long legs: Opiliones; any individual of this order.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how harvestman appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonym: carter
Etymology
From harvest + -man. (sense 2): There are various hypotheses and folk etymologies for why the arachnids are called harvestmen, but the most likely explanation is the shape of their legs, which resemble sickles or scythes. More information The association with harvesting or haymaking is found across Europe; compare words for “harvest spider” in other languages: Dutch hooiwagen (literally “hay-cart”), Welsh medelwr (literally “reaper, harvester”), Irish Pilib an fhómhair (literally “Philip of the harvest”), Danish mejer (literally “mower, reaper”), French faucheur (literally “scyther”), Spanish segador (literally “reaper, harvester, mower”) and agostero (literally “August-er”), Czech sekáč (literally “reaper, mower; warrior”), Polish kosarz (literally “reaper, mower, haymaker”), Russian сенокосец (senokosec, literally “little haymaker”) and косиножка (kosinožka, literally “little scythe-leg”), Ukrainian косарик (kosaryk, literally “mower”), Hungarian kaszáspók (literally “scyther-spider”), Serbo-Croatian pauk kosac (literally “reaper spider”), and even modern Hebrew קוצר (kotsér, originally “shortener”, literally “reaper, harvester”). Further compare German Schneider (literally “cutter; tailor”), Swiss Zimmermann (literally “carpenter”) and Welsh teiliwr (literally “tailor”). (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced? )
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.