headship
"headship" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“headship” is uncommon English (frequency #72,383 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #72,383
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The position of a head or chief.
Corpus desk
Index EN-headship · headship · English
headship · rank #72,383 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #72,383
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH headedness
Nearest frequency peer: headedness (-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 “headship”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Hanako
Hanako
27,624 corpus weight
- headedness
headedness
27,619 corpus weight
- headship
headship
27,618 corpus weight
- heterocyclic
heterocyclic
27,616 corpus weight
- hig
hig
27,614 corpus weight
- hijinks
hijinks
27,613 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “headship” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | headship |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #72,383 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “headship” in English
Rare enough to double-check
headship is uncommon English at frequency #72,383 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for headship in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From head + -ship. Piecewise doublet of chiefship. The correct English form is headship, spelled H-E-A-D-S-H-I-P.
Definition
- 1The position of a head or chief.
- 2The position of a headmaster or headmistress.
- 3Authority or dignity.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how headship appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
And if you say that this enslavement of Woman has nothing to do with religion[…]then listen to the Vicar of Crantock, preaching at St. Crantock's, London, Aug. 27th, 1905, and explaining why women must cover their heads in church: […] (7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is Christ, but the head of the woman is man.
[…] shows Dorothy Ranaghan explaining how some female followers of the faith group cried intensely in reaction to the group’s early teachings on “headship” and the “roles of men and women”, in which men are considered divinely ordained as the “head” of the family and dominant to women.
Etymology
From head + -ship. Piecewise doublet of chiefship.
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 "headship", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).