infelicitous
/ˌɪn.fəˈlɪs.ɪ.təs/
"infelicitous" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“infelicitous” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Unhappy or unfortunate.
Corpus desk
Index EN-infelicitous · infelicitous · English
infelicitous · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 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 | infelicitous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˌɪn.fəˈlɪs.ɪ.təs/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “infelicitous” in English
Rare enough to double-check
infelicitous is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˌɪn.fəˈlɪs.ɪ.təs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for infelicitous, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From in- + felicitous. The correct English form is infelicitous, spelled I-N-F-E-L-I-C-I-T-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Unhappy or unfortunate.
- 2Inappropriate or awkward; not well said, expressed, or done.
- 3Of a sentence or utterance: not semantically and pragmatically coherent.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how infelicitous appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
My last run this month is an amazing performance of an "A2/3" Pacific, No. 60524, Herringbone (could there possibly be a more infelicitous name for a locomotive than this, let alone for the unhappy horse which first had to bear it?), […].
If leading a "dog's life" be considered a peculiar phase of human misery, the life of a Boys' Dog is still more infelicitous.
Etymology
From in- + felicitous.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
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.