hay fever
"hay-fever" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hay fever” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An allergy to the pollen of grass or other plants that causes symptoms similar to those of a cold; pollinosis.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hay-fever · hay fever · English
hay fever · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | hay fever |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “hay fever” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hay fever is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An allergy to the pollen of grass or other plants that causes symptoms similar to those of a cold; pollinosis.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for hay fever in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested by John Bostock in 1819. The smell of hay in the summer was thought to be the origin of the condition. The correct English form is hay fever, spelled H-A-Y- -F-E-V-E-R.
Definition
- 1An allergy to the pollen of grass or other plants that causes symptoms similar to those of a cold; pollinosis.
Etymology
First attested by John Bostock in 1819. The smell of hay in the summer was thought to be the origin of the condition.
Synonyms
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.