horry

adj

"horry" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“horry” is uncommon English (frequency #62,203 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#62,203
frequency rank, English
2,646
“H” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - impure; unclean; disgustingly dirty; foul

Corpus desk

Index EN-horry · horry · English

horry · rank #62,203 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #62,203
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,646
  • PHOTO-FINISH Houlihan

Nearest frequency peer: Houlihan (+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 “horry”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “horry” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for horry
PropertyValue
Headwordhorry
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters5
Frequency rank#62,203
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “horry” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).horryfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “Houlihan” (#62,204), “Howlett” (#62,205), “hulks” (#62,206). Among 2,646 “H” headwords, “horry” is #62,203. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

horry is uncommon English at frequency #62,203 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "impure; unclean; disgustingly dirty; foul".

horry doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hory, hoory, from Old English horiġ, horhiġ (“foul, unclean”), from Proto-West Germanic *hurhwīg, from Proto-Germanic *hurhwīgaz (“foul, filthy, soiled, unclean”). Cognate with Middle High German horwig, horwic, horig, horg (“muddy, filt… The correct English form is horry, spelled H-O-R-R-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    impure; unclean; disgustingly dirty; foul

Etymology

From Middle English hory, hoory, from Old English horiġ, horhiġ (“foul, unclean”), from Proto-West Germanic *hurhwīg, from Proto-Germanic *hurhwīgaz (“foul, filthy, soiled, unclean”). Cognate with Middle High German horwig, horwic, horig, horg (“muddy, filthy”).

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

How do you spell "horry"?
"horry" is spelled H-O-R-R-Y.
What does "horry" mean?
As an adjective, "horry" means: impure; unclean; disgustingly dirty; foul
What is the origin of the word "horry"?
From Middle English hory, hoory, from Old English horiġ, horhiġ (“foul, unclean”), from Proto-West Germanic *hurhwīg, from Proto-Germanic *hurhwīgaz (“foul, filthy, soiled, unclean”). Cognate with Middle High German horwig, horwic, horig, horg (“m... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "horry", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list