index term
"index-term" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“index term” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. 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) - A term associated with particular documents in an index used for document retrieval; typically, a term that captures the essential meaning of a document.
Corpus desk
Index EN-index-term · index term · English
index term · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | index term |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “index term” in English
Rare enough to double-check
index term is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A term associated with particular documents in an index used for document retrieval; typically, a term that captures the essential meaning of a document.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for index term in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is index term, spelled I-N-D-E-X- -T-E-R-M.
Definition
- 1A term associated with particular documents in an index used for document retrieval; typically, a term that captures the essential meaning of a document.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how index term appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
This includes a term dictionary that provides for each allowable index term a pointer giving the addresses of the document lists in the term index for the corresponding term; […]
If the indexing is being performed automatically, by an algorithm, there is consistency in the index term selection process.
Synonyms
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.