Ishtar

name

"ishtar" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Ishtar” is uncommon English (frequency #51,186 among 2,140 “I” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#51,186
frequency rank, English
2,140
“I” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A goddess of fertility, love, sex, and war. In the Babylonian pantheon, she was the divine personification of the planet Venus; the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to...

Corpus desk

Index EN-ishtar · Ishtar · English

Ishtar · rank #51,186 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #51,186
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,140
  • PHOTO-FINISH Irani

Nearest frequency peer: Irani (-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 “Ishtar”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “Ishtar” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for Ishtar
PropertyValue
HeadwordIshtar
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechProper noun
Letters6
Frequency rank#51,186
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “Ishtar” in English

This scale runs from the tiny cluster of words that carry ordinary speech (left) to the long tail of words almost nobody reaches for (right).Ishtarfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “Irani” (#51,185), “ISRO” (#51,187), “investigatory” (#51,184). Among 2,140 “I” headwords, “Ishtar” is #51,186. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Ishtar is uncommon English at frequency #51,186 among 2,140 “I” headwords, classed as aproper noun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A goddess of fertility, love, sex, and war. In the Babylonian pantheon, she was the divine personification of the planet Venus; the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to...".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Ishtar, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Akkadian 𒀭𒈹 (Ištar). Doublet of Astarte and Ashtoreth. Despite modern folk-etymology, not related in any way to English Easter. The correct English form is Ishtar, spelled I-S-H-T-A-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    A goddess of fertility, love, sex, and war. In the Babylonian pantheon, she was the divine personification of the planet Venus; the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the northwest-Semitic goddess Astarte.

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Akkadian 𒀭𒈹 (Ištar). Doublet of Astarte and Ashtoreth. Despite modern folk-etymology, not related in any way to English Easter.

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

How do you spell "Ishtar"?
"Ishtar" is spelled I-S-H-T-A-R.
What does "Ishtar" mean?
As a proper noun, "Ishtar" means: A goddess of fertility, love, sex, and war. In the Babylonian pantheon, she was the divine personification of the planet Venus; the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to...
What is the origin of the word "Ishtar"?
Learned borrowing from Akkadian 𒀭𒈹 (Ištar). Doublet of Astarte and Ashtoreth. Despite modern folk-etymology, not related in any way to English Easter. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Ishtar", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list