marsupial
/mɑːˈsuː.pi.əl/
"marsupial" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“marsupial” is uncommon English (frequency #58,833 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #58,833
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any member of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia, including those where the female has a pouch in which it rears its young through early infancy, such as kangaroos, koalas, wombats and opossums, ...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | marsupial |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɑːˈsuː.pi.əl/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #58,833 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “marsupial” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
marsupial is uncommon English at frequency #58,833 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /mɑːˈsuː.pi.əl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any member of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia, including those where the female has a pouch in which it rears its young through early infancy, such as kangaroos, koalas, wombats and opossums, ...".
Zero misspellings are on record for marsupial in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin marsupium, marsuppium (“pouch, purse”), from Ancient Greek μαρσύπιον (marsúpion) or μαρσύππιον (marsúppion), variants of μαρσίππιον (marsíppion), diminutive of μάρσιππος (mársippos, “bag, pouch”); with English -al. The correct English form is marsupial, spelled M-A-R-S-U-P-I-A-L.
Definition
- 1Any member of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia, including those where the female has a pouch in which it rears its young through early infancy, such as kangaroos, koalas, wombats and opossums, as well as the pouchless shrew opossums.
Etymology
From Latin marsupium, marsuppium (“pouch, purse”), from Ancient Greek μαρσύπιον (marsúpion) or μαρσύππιον (marsúppion), variants of μαρσίππιον (marsíppion), diminutive of μάρσιππος (mársippos, “bag, pouch”); with English -al.
Synonyms
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 “marsupial”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-R-S-U-P-I-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mɑːˈsuː.pi.əl/ (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.