ingratiating
"ingratiating" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ingratiating” is uncommon English (frequency #84,394 among 2,140 “I” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #84,394
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Which ingratiates; which attempts to bring oneself into the favour of another, often with flattery or insincerity; smarmy; unctuous; oily.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ingratiating · ingratiating · English
ingratiating · rank #84,394 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #84,394
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH inescapably
Nearest frequency peer: inescapably (-1 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “ingratiating”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- incivility
incivility
15,610 corpus weight
- indigestible
indigestible
15,609 corpus weight
- inescapably
inescapably
15,608 corpus weight
- ingratiating
ingratiating
15,607 corpus weight
- insensible
insensible
15,606 corpus weight
- interlacing
interlacing
15,604 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “ingratiating” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ingratiating |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #84,394 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ingratiating” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ingratiating is uncommon English at frequency #84,394 among 2,140 “I” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Which ingratiates; which attempts to bring oneself into the favour of another, often with flattery or insincerity; smarmy; unctuous; oily.".
ingratiating doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is ingratiating, spelled I-N-G-R-A-T-I-A-T-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Which ingratiates; which attempts to bring oneself into the favour of another, often with flattery or insincerity; smarmy; unctuous; oily.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ingratiating appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
an ingratiating smile.
Mr. Alfred O'Shea, a tenorizing youth from Australia, sang several times at Queen's Hall, and may congratulate himself on being one of the 'catches' of the season. He sang airs from Italian and French operas, and also a number of Irish ditties—naturally, with a name like that and such an ingratiating McCormackian voice.
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); 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ingratiating", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).