localism
/ˈloʊkəlɪzəm/
"localism" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“localism” is uncommon English (frequency #65,273 among 16,425 “L” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #65,273
- frequency rank, English
- 16,425
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Attachment to a particular local place; feelings or policies which emphasize local phenomena.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | localism |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈloʊkəlɪzəm/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #65,273 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “localism” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
localism is uncommon English at frequency #65,273 among 16,425 “L” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈloʊkəlɪzəm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for localism in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From local + -ism. The correct English form is localism, spelled L-O-C-A-L-I-S-M.
Definition
- 1Attachment to a particular local place; feelings or policies which emphasize local phenomena.
- 2A linguistic feature that is unique to a locality.
- 3The belief that language functions are localized to various parts of the brain.
- 4An approach to understanding expressions in terms of position and movement (sometimes abstract, e.g. one who is hungry is in a notional "space" of hunger).
Etymology
From local + -ism.
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 “localism”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-O-C-A-L-I-S-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈloʊkəlɪzəm/ (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.