lychee
/ˈlaɪ̯t͡ʃi/
"lychee" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lychee” is uncommon English (frequency #70,850 among 2,297 “L” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,850
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The Chinese tropical fruit tree Litchi chinensis, of the soapberry family.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lychee · lychee · English
lychee · rank #70,850 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #70,850
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH lunchroom
Nearest frequency peer: lunchroom (-1 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “lychee”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- LSP
LSP
29,155 corpus weight
- Ludovic
Ludovic
29,154 corpus weight
- lunchroom
lunchroom
29,152 corpus weight
- lychee
lychee
29,151 corpus weight
- Lytham
Lytham
29,150 corpus weight
- Maccabi
Maccabi
29,147 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “lychee” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lychee |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈlaɪ̯t͡ʃi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #70,850 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lychee” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lychee is uncommon English at frequency #70,850 among 2,297 “L” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈlaɪ̯t͡ʃi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
lychee has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: * /ˈlaɪ̯.t͡ʃi/, /laɪ̯ˈt͡ʃiː/ from Cantonese 荔枝 (lai⁶ zi¹) * /ˈlit͡ʃi/ from Hokkien 荔枝 (lē-chi) Doublet of litchi and lichi. The correct English form is lychee, spelled L-Y-C-H-E-E.
Definition
- 1The Chinese tropical fruit tree Litchi chinensis, of the soapberry family.
- 2That tree's bright red oval fruit with a single stone surrounded by a fleshy white aril.
- 3A soft pink-red colour, like that of a lychee rind (also called lychee red).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how lychee appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
No Chinese meal is complete without some succulent dim sims (pork minced with water chestnuts and enclosed in paste), and such sweets as honeyed lychee nuts and honeyed ginger.
Etymology
* /ˈlaɪ̯.t͡ʃi/, /laɪ̯ˈt͡ʃiː/ from Cantonese 荔枝 (lai⁶ zi¹) * /ˈlit͡ʃi/ from Hokkien 荔枝 (lē-chi) Doublet of litchi and lichi.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "lychee", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).