infuscate
"infuscate" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“infuscate” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To darken; to make black or obscure.
Corpus desk
Index EN-infuscate · infuscate · English
infuscate · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | infuscate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “infuscate” in English
Rare enough to double-check
infuscate is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To darken; to make black or obscure.".
Zero misspellings are on record for infuscate in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is first attested in 1650, the adjective in 1826; borrowed from Latin īnfuscātus, perfect passive participle of īnfuscō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from in- (“in”) + fuscō (“to make dark”), from fuscus (“da… The correct English form is infuscate, spelled I-N-F-U-S-C-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To darken; to make black or obscure.
Etymology
The verb is first attested in 1650, the adjective in 1826; borrowed from Latin īnfuscātus, perfect passive participle of īnfuscō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from in- (“in”) + fuscō (“to make dark”), from fuscus (“dark”).
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.