indelicate
"indelicate" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“indelicate” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Improper or immodest.
Corpus desk
Index EN-indelicate · indelicate · English
indelicate · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | indelicate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “indelicate” in English
Rare enough to double-check
indelicate is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for indelicate, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. 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 in- + delicate. The correct English form is indelicate, spelled I-N-D-E-L-I-C-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1Improper or immodest.
- 2Coarse or tasteless.
- 3Tactless or undiplomatic.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how indelicate appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when "funk" and "funky" were used increasingly in the context of jazz music, the terms still were considered indelicate and inappropriate for use in polite company.
Schuetz acknowledges that he knew about the Dale Barbre murder investigation as it was reported in GCN. Yet the Barbre murder saga provided only the skeleton — if I may be forgiven the indelicate word choice — for the story they concoct.
Etymology
From in- + delicate.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.