khat
/kɑːt/
"khat" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“khat” is uncommon English (frequency #73,342 among 9,255 “K” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,342
- frequency rank, English
- 9,255
- “K” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A shrub, Catha edulis, whose leaves are used as a mild stimulant when chewed or brewed as tea; also a drug produced from this plant.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | khat |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɑːt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #73,342 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “khat” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
khat is uncommon English at frequency #73,342 among 9,255 “K” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /kɑːt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A shrub, Catha edulis, whose leaves are used as a mild stimulant when chewed or brewed as tea; also a drug produced from this plant.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for khat, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Arabic قَات (qāt). The correct English form is khat, spelled K-H-A-T.
Definition
- 1A shrub, Catha edulis, whose leaves are used as a mild stimulant when chewed or brewed as tea; also a drug produced from this plant.
Etymology
From Arabic قَات (qāt).
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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Using “khat”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is K-H-A-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kɑːt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.