mass extinction
"mass-extinction" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mass extinction” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A sharp decrease in the total number of species in a relatively short period of time; specifically, a loss of ∼75% of all species on the planet over a geologically interval of less than 3 million y...
Corpus desk
Index EN-mass-extinction · mass extinction · English
mass extinction · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "M" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mass extinction |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “mass extinction” in English
Rare enough to double-check
mass extinction is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A sharp decrease in the total number of species in a relatively short period of time; specifically, a loss of ∼75% of all species on the planet over a geologically interval of less than 3 million y...".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for mass extinction, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is mass extinction, spelled M-A-S-S- -E-X-T-I-N-C-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1A sharp decrease in the total number of species in a relatively short period of time; specifically, a loss of ∼75% of all species on the planet over a geologically interval of less than 3 million years, as a result of a mass extinction event.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how mass extinction appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Preceded by five other mass extinctions and many more small extinction events, the mass extinction currently underway is, on the one hand, like all the others in that it is nothing other than a significant reduction in the number of individual organisms inhabiting the planet and at the same time a significant reduction in the diversity of species made up…
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.