impatience
/ɪmˈpeɪʃəns/
"impatience" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“impatience” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #29,691 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #29,691
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The quality of being impatient; lacking patience; restlessness and intolerance of delays; anxiety and eagerness, especially to begin something.
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 | impatience |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɪmˈpeɪʃəns/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #29,691 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “impatience” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for impatience is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪmˈpeɪʃəns/. Corpus data places it at rank #29,691 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The quality of being impatient; lacking patience; restlessness and intolerance of delays; anxiety and eagerness, especially to begin something.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for impatience, with forms such as "imaptience", "immpatience", and "impaitence". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "impatient", "impotence", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English impacience, from Old French impacience (modern French impatience), from Latin impatientia. By surface analysis, im- + patience. The correct English form is impatience, spelled I-M-P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1The quality of being impatient; lacking patience; restlessness and intolerance of delays; anxiety and eagerness, especially to begin something.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English impacience, from Old French impacience (modern French impatience), from Latin impatientia. By surface analysis, im- + patience.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: imaptience,immpatience,impaitence,impateince,impatiance,impatiecne,impatiencce,impatienec,impatiennce,impatinece,impattience,imppatience,imptaience,ipmatience,mipatience
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of impatience - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "impatience"?
What does "impatience" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "impatience"?
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Using “impatience”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is I-M-P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɪmˈpeɪʃəns/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “impatient” - see the side-by-side comparison. impatience vs impatient
- 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.