mansplaining
/ˈmanˌspleɪnɪŋ/
"mansplaining" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mansplaining” is uncommon English (frequency #80,647 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,647
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of condescendingly explaining something, particularly by a man to a woman, in order to appear knowledgeable, or from a mistaken presumption that she has an inferior understanding of the topic.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mansplaining |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmanˌspleɪnɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #80,647 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mansplaining” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
mansplaining is uncommon English at frequency #80,647 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈmanˌspleɪnɪŋ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act of condescendingly explaining something, particularly by a man to a woman, in order to appear knowledgeable, or from a mistaken presumption that she has an inferior understanding of the topic.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for mansplaining, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Blend of man + explaining, or from mansplain + -ing. The correct English form is mansplaining, spelled M-A-N-S-P-L-A-I-N-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of condescendingly explaining something, particularly by a man to a woman, in order to appear knowledgeable, or from a mistaken presumption that she has an inferior understanding of the topic.
Etymology
Blend of man + explaining, or from mansplain + -ing.
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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Using “mansplaining”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-N-S-P-L-A-I-N-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmanˌspleɪnɪŋ/ (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.