lorn
/lɔːn/
"lorn" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lorn” is uncommon English (frequency #95,089 among 16,425 “L” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #95,089
- frequency rank, English
- 16,425
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Doomed; lost.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lorn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /lɔːn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #95,089 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lorn” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
lorn is uncommon English at frequency #95,089 among 16,425 “L” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /lɔːn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for lorn, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English lorn, loren, ilorn, iloren (past participle of lese, lesen (“to lose, be deprived of; to damn, doom to perdition”)), from Old English loren, ġeloren, from Proto-Germanic *galuzanaz, *luzanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *leusaną (“… The correct English form is lorn, spelled L-O-R-N.
Definition
- 1Doomed; lost.
- 2Abandoned, forlorn, lonely.
Etymology
From Middle English lorn, loren, ilorn, iloren (past participle of lese, lesen (“to lose, be deprived of; to damn, doom to perdition”)), from Old English loren, ġeloren, from Proto-Germanic *galuzanaz, *luzanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *leusaną (“to lose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewH- (“to cut, sever; to separate; to loosen; to lose”). See further at lese.
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 “lorn”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-O-R-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /lɔːn/ (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.