infancy
/ˈɪnfənsi/
"infancy" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“infancy” has 11 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #17,641. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #17,641
- frequency rank, English
- 17,902
- “I” headwords
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The earliest period of childhood (crawling rather than walking).
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 | infancy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɪnfənsi/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #17,641 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “infancy” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 11 spelling variants around infancy (IPA /ˈɪnfənsi/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #17,641 among 17,902 “I” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for infancy, with forms such as "ifnancy", "inafncy", and "infacny". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "infant", "infants", "infantry", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English infancie, from Latin īnfantia (“infancy, early childhood; childishness”), equivalent to infant + -cy. The correct English form is infancy, spelled I-N-F-A-N-C-Y.
Definition
- 1The earliest period of childhood (crawling rather than walking).
- 2The state of being an infant.
- 3An early stage in the development of anything.
- 4The state of being a minor.
Etymology
From Middle English infancie, from Latin īnfantia (“infancy, early childhood; childishness”), equivalent to infant + -cy.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ifnancy,inafncy,infacny,infanccy,infancyy,infanncy,infanyc,inffancy,infnacy,innfancy,nifancy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of infancy - 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
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Using “infancy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is I-N-F-A-N-C-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɪnfənsi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “infant” - see the side-by-side comparison. infancy vs infant
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Same frequency band
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.