humility
/hjuːˈmɪlɪti/
"humility" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“humility” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,173 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,173
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The characteristic of being humble; humbleness in character and behavior.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | humility |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #13,173 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “humility” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for humility is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,173 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The characteristic of being humble; humbleness in character and behavior.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for humility, with forms such as "hhumility", "hmuility", and "huimlity". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "humanity", "humidity", "humiliate", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English humilite, from Old French (h)umilité, from Latin humilitas (“lowness, meanness, baseness, in Late Latin humility”), from humilis (“low, lowly, humble, earth”). Equivalent to humble + -ity, with /mb/ reduced to /m/ (compare plumbing). Dis… The correct English form is humility, spelled H-U-M-I-L-I-T-Y.
Definition
- 1The characteristic of being humble; humbleness in character and behavior.
Etymology
From Middle English humilite, from Old French (h)umilité, from Latin humilitas (“lowness, meanness, baseness, in Late Latin humility”), from humilis (“low, lowly, humble, earth”). Equivalent to humble + -ity, with /mb/ reduced to /m/ (compare plumbing). Displaced native Old English ēaþmōdnes. Doublet of omertà.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhumility,hmuility,huimlity,humiilty,humilitty,humilityy,humiliyt,humillity,humiltiy,humliity,hummility,uhmility
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of humility - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "humility"?
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Using “humility”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-U-M-I-L-I-T-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “humanity” - see the side-by-side comparison. humility vs humanity
- 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.