illicitly
"illicitly" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“illicitly” is uncommon English (frequency #79,619 among 2,140 “I” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #79,619
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In an illicit manner; illegally, immorally, or inappropriately.
Corpus desk
Index EN-illicitly · illicitly · English
illicitly · rank #79,619 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #79,619
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH impaler
Nearest frequency peer: impaler (+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 “illicitly”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- iconoclast
iconoclast
20,386 corpus weight
- idolatrous
idolatrous
20,385 corpus weight
- illicitly
illicitly
20,382 corpus weight
- impaler
impaler
20,381 corpus weight
- impish
impish
20,380 corpus weight
- incentivise
incentivise
20,377 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “illicitly” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | illicitly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #79,619 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “illicitly” in English
Rare enough to double-check
illicitly is uncommon English at frequency #79,619 among 2,140 “I” headwords, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In an illicit manner; illegally, immorally, or inappropriately.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for illicitly, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From illicit + -ly. The correct English form is illicitly, spelled I-L-L-I-C-I-T-L-Y.
Definition
- 1In an illicit manner; illegally, immorally, or inappropriately.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how illicitly appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
India is merely the geopsychic site for a cluster of undesirabilities that continue to be illicitly desired.
Etymology
From illicit + -ly.
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 "illicitly", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).