heartbreaking
"heartbreaking" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“heartbreaking” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,528 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #13,528
- frequency rank, English
- 13
- letters
- 20
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - That causes great grief, anguish or distress.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | heartbreaking |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 13 |
| Frequency rank | #13,528 |
| Misspellings tracked | 20 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “heartbreaking” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for heartbreaking is 13 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #13,528 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "That causes great grief, anguish or distress.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 20 likely wrong-spelling variants for heartbreaking, with forms such as "ehartbreaking", "haertbreaking", and "hearbtreaking". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From heart + breaking. The correct English form is heartbreaking, spelled H-E-A-R-T-B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1That causes great grief, anguish or distress.
Etymology
From heart + breaking.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ehartbreaking,haertbreaking,hearbtreaking,hearrtbreaking,heartbbreaking,heartberaking,heartbraeking,heartbreaikng,heartbreakign,heartbreakingg,heartbreakinng,heartbreakking,heartbreaknig,heartbrekaing,heartbrreaking,heartrbeaking,hearttbreaking,heatrbreaking,heratbreaking,hheartbreaking
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of heartbreaking - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “heartbreaking”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-E-A-R-T-B-R-E-A-K-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.