heptathlon
/hɛpˈtæθlɒn/
"heptathlon" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“heptathlon” is uncommon English (frequency #64,420 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #64,420
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An athletic contest comprising seven events; contested mostly by women, for whom this is an Olympic sport.
Corpus desk
Index EN-heptathlon · heptathlon · English
heptathlon · rank #64,420 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #64,420
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH hemolytic
Nearest frequency peer: hemolytic (-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 “heptathlon”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- harmer
harmer
35,584 corpus weight
- Hartland
Hartland
35,583 corpus weight
- hemolytic
hemolytic
35,582 corpus weight
- heptathlon
heptathlon
35,581 corpus weight
- heterodox
heterodox
35,579 corpus weight
- hev
hev
35,578 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “heptathlon” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | heptathlon |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hɛpˈtæθlɒn/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #64,420 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “heptathlon” in English
Rare enough to double-check
heptathlon is uncommon English at frequency #64,420 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /hɛpˈtæθlɒn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An athletic contest comprising seven events; contested mostly by women, for whom this is an Olympic sport.".
heptathlon has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From hepta- + -athlon. The correct English form is heptathlon, spelled H-E-P-T-A-T-H-L-O-N.
Definition
- 1An athletic contest comprising seven events; contested mostly by women, for whom this is an Olympic sport.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how heptathlon appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[Carolina Kluft] has won her last 19 heptathlons. Only the legendary Jackie Joyner-Kersee has scored higher.
For now, Gray and her peers are able to compete for Olympic berths only in the seven-event heptathlon, while the decathlon is restricted to men.
Etymology
From hepta- + -athlon.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "heptathlon", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).