life expectancy

noun

"life-expectancy" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“life expectancy” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
15
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The amount of time one is expected to live.

Corpus desk

Index EN-life-expectancy · life expectancy · English

life expectancy · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 15 letters
  • VOW-6 6 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.

Key facts for life expectancy
PropertyValue
Headwordlife expectancy
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters15
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “life expectancy” in English

life expectancyranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

life expectancy is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No generated misspelling entries exist for life expectancy in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is life expectancy, spelled L-I-F-E- -E-X-P-E-C-T-A-N-C-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    The amount of time one is expected to live.
  2. 2
    The amount of time something is expected to last.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how life expectancy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Great Danes have relatively short life expectancies compared to smaller dogs, living for an average of 8-10 years, and males are typically about 2.5 feet (0.76 meters) tall, according to the American Kennel Club.
  2. People born in 2023 are now estimated to live 78.4 years, according to the CDC. That’s still shy of the 78.8-year life expectancy from 2019, but it’s a significant improvement driven by lower death rates in each of the 10 leading causes of death.

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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "life expectancy"?
"life expectancy" is spelled L-I-F-E- -E-X-P-E-C-T-A-N-C-Y.
What does "life expectancy" mean?
As a noun, "life expectancy" means: The amount of time one is expected to live.
What language does "life expectancy" come from?
"life expectancy" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list