homing pigeon

noun

"homing-pigeon" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“homing pigeon” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A variety of domesticated rock pigeon (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find its way home over extremely long distances.

Key facts for homing pigeon
PropertyValue
Headwordhoming pigeon
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “homing pigeon” sits in English frequency

homing pigeon falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

homing pigeon is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A variety of domesticated rock pigeon (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find its way home over extremely long distances.".

Zero misspellings are on record for homing pigeon in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is homing pigeon, spelled H-O-M-I-N-G- -P-I-G-E-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    A variety of domesticated rock pigeon (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find its way home over extremely long distances.

Synonyms

carrier pigeonhomerhomer pigeonmessenger pigeonracerracing homerracing pigeon

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "homing pigeon"?
"homing pigeon" is spelled H-O-M-I-N-G- -P-I-G-E-O-N.
What does "homing pigeon" mean?
As a noun, "homing pigeon" means: A variety of domesticated rock pigeon (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find its way home over extremely long distances.
What language does "homing pigeon" come from?
"homing pigeon" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “homing pigeon”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is H-O-M-I-N-G- -P-I-G-E-O-N - 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list