malarkey
/məˈlɑːki/
"malarkey" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“malarkey” is uncommon English (frequency #58,827 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #58,827
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nonsense; rubbish.
Corpus desk
Index EN-malarkey · malarkey · English
malarkey · rank #58,827 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #58,827
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Mangalore
Nearest frequency peer: Mangalore (+2 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 “malarkey”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- magister
magister
41,178 corpus weight
- malarkey
malarkey
41,174 corpus weight
- Mangalore
Mangalore
41,172 corpus weight
- Maren
Maren
41,170 corpus weight
- Margaery
Margaery
41,169 corpus weight
- marsupial
marsupial
41,168 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “malarkey” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | malarkey |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /məˈlɑːki/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #58,827 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “malarkey” in English
Rare enough to double-check
malarkey is uncommon English at frequency #58,827 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /məˈlɑːki/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Nonsense; rubbish.".
No misspelling variants are generated for malarkey in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Of unknown origin; the word was popularized by the Irish-American cartoonist Thomas Aloysius (“Tad”) Dorgan (1877–1929), who started using it in cartoons on March 9, 1922. Maybe from Irish mallachtóireacht or Greek μαλακίες (malakíes) The correct English form is malarkey, spelled M-A-L-A-R-K-E-Y.
Definition
- 1Nonsense; rubbish.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how malarkey appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I decided it was a bunch of malarkey and stopped reading about halfway through.
Malachy—You said it—I wouldn't trust a lawyer no further than I could throw a case of Scotch.
Etymology
Of unknown origin; the word was popularized by the Irish-American cartoonist Thomas Aloysius (“Tad”) Dorgan (1877–1929), who started using it in cartoons on March 9, 1922. Maybe from Irish mallachtóireacht or Greek μαλακίες (malakíes)
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 "malarkey", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).