Hephaestus
/hɪˈfiːstəs/
"hephaestus" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Hephaestus” is uncommon English (frequency #74,165 among 23,837 “H” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,165
- frequency rank, English
- 23,837
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The god of fire, smithwork, metallurgy, volcanoes, and artisans, who served as blacksmith of the gods. His Roman counterpart is Vulcan.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Hephaestus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /hɪˈfiːstəs/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #74,165 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Hephaestus” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
Hephaestus is uncommon English at frequency #74,165 among 23,837 “H” headwords, classed as aproper noun, transcribed /hɪˈfiːstəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The god of fire, smithwork, metallurgy, volcanoes, and artisans, who served as blacksmith of the gods. His Roman counterpart is Vulcan.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Hephaestus, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin Hephaestus, from Ancient Greek Ἥφαιστος (Hḗphaistos), a pre-Greek word of unknown origin. The correct English form is Hephaestus, spelled H-E-P-H-A-E-S-T-U-S.
Definition
- 1The god of fire, smithwork, metallurgy, volcanoes, and artisans, who served as blacksmith of the gods. His Roman counterpart is Vulcan.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin Hephaestus, from Ancient Greek Ἥφαιστος (Hḗphaistos), a pre-Greek word of unknown origin.
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); 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 “Hephaestus”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-E-P-H-A-E-S-T-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hɪˈfiːstəs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.