horrify
/ˈhɒɹɪfaɪ/
"horrify" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“horrify” is uncommon English (frequency #81,412 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #81,412
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To cause to feel extreme apprehension or unease; to cause to experience horror.
Corpus desk
Index EN-horrify · horrify · English
horrify · rank #81,412 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #81,412
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH holey
Nearest frequency peer: holey (-4 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 “horrify”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- highball
highball
18,597 corpus weight
- historicism
historicism
18,595 corpus weight
- holdfast
holdfast
18,594 corpus weight
- holey
holey
18,593 corpus weight
- horrify
horrify
18,589 corpus weight
- IAR
IAR
18,581 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “horrify” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | horrify |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈhɒɹɪfaɪ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #81,412 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “horrify” in English
Rare enough to double-check
horrify is uncommon English at frequency #81,412 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /ˈhɒɹɪfaɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To cause to feel extreme apprehension or unease; to cause to experience horror.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for horrify, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From horror + -ify, or borrowed from Latin horrificare (cf. French horrifier). 1791, in form horrifying. The correct English form is horrify, spelled H-O-R-R-I-F-Y.
Definition
- 1To cause to feel extreme apprehension or unease; to cause to experience horror.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how horrify appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The haunted house horrified me, as I passed from one room to the next feeling more and more like I wasn’t going to survive.
Etymology
From horror + -ify, or borrowed from Latin horrificare (cf. French horrifier). 1791, in form horrifying.
Synonyms
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 "horrify", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).