lacewing
/ˈleɪs.wɪŋ/
"lacewing" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lacewing” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of a number of gauzy-winged insects of certain families within the order Neuroptera.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lacewing · lacewing · English
lacewing · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" 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 | lacewing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈleɪs.wɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lacewing” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lacewing is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈleɪs.wɪŋ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for lacewing, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From lace + wing. Possibly a calque of translingual Neuroptera. The correct English form is lacewing, spelled L-A-C-E-W-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Any of a number of gauzy-winged insects of certain families within the order Neuroptera.
- 2Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Cethosia (order Lepidoptera).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lacewing appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We recently proposed a new genus of Thorny Lacewing (Insecta, Neuroptera, Rhachiberothidae) from the Eocene amber of France.
The family Rachiberothidae has been of considerable controversy and has been considered at different times during its history as a subfamily of Berothidae (Tjeder, 1959), or even of Mantispidae (Willmann, 1990b, 1004b). The "thorny lacewings" generally resemble other berothids except in the raptorial forelegs, which are convergent with those of the mantis…
Etymology
From lace + wing. Possibly a calque of translingual Neuroptera.
Synonyms
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.