jitter
/ˈd͡ʒɪtə(ɹ)/
"jitter" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“jitter” is uncommon English (frequency #54,870 among 796 “J” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,870
- frequency rank, English
- 796
- “J” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A nervous action; a tic.
Corpus desk
Index EN-jitter · jitter · English
jitter · rank #54,870 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #54,870
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 796
- PHOTO-FINISH Jourdan
Nearest frequency peer: Jourdan (+2 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 “jitter”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Jaffna
Jaffna
45,137 corpus weight
- jitter
jitter
45,131 corpus weight
- Jourdan
Jourdan
45,129 corpus weight
- joust
joust
45,128 corpus weight
- jy
jy
45,126 corpus weight
- Kapil
Kapil
45,124 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “jitter” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | jitter |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈd͡ʒɪtə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #54,870 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “jitter” in English
Rare enough to double-check
jitter is uncommon English at frequency #54,870 among 796 “J” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈd͡ʒɪtə(ɹ)/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
jitter has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Possibly alteration of chitter (“to tremble, shiver”), from Middle English chittern (“to twitter, chatter”). Ultimately onomatopoeic; compare didder and teeter as well as German zittern. The correct English form is jitter, spelled J-I-T-T-E-R.
Definition
- 1A nervous action; a tic.
- 2A state of nervousness.
- 3An abrupt and unwanted variation of one or more signal characteristics.
- 4A random positioning of data points to avoid visual overlap.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how jitter appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That creepy movie gave me the jitters.
But Bolton deserve real credit, seeking to take advantage of their jitters at every opportunity in typically determined fashion.
Etymology
Possibly alteration of chitter (“to tremble, shiver”), from Middle English chittern (“to twitter, chatter”). Ultimately onomatopoeic; compare didder and teeter as well as German zittern.
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 "jitter", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).