masterstroke
"masterstroke" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“masterstroke” is uncommon English (frequency #80,656 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,656
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An action which demonstrates great skill or artistry.
Corpus desk
Index EN-masterstroke · masterstroke · English
masterstroke · rank #80,656 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,656
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH masted
Nearest frequency peer: masted (-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 “masterstroke”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Masaru
Masaru
19,347 corpus weight
- masted
masted
19,346 corpus weight
- masterstroke
masterstroke
19,345 corpus weight
- Masuda
Masuda
19,344 corpus weight
- maturely
maturely
19,343 corpus weight
- McBurney
McBurney
19,342 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “masterstroke” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | masterstroke |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #80,656 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “masterstroke” in English
Rare enough to double-check
masterstroke is uncommon English at frequency #80,656 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An action which demonstrates great skill or artistry.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for masterstroke, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From master + stroke. The correct English form is masterstroke, spelled M-A-S-T-E-R-S-T-R-O-K-E.
Definition
- 1An action which demonstrates great skill or artistry.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how masterstroke appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The Ivorian is a player with such a liking for improvisation it does not usually look like he has any more idea than anyone else what he is going to do next, so it was an interesting choice. As it turned out, it was a masterstroke. The striker was full of running, played with a more direct shoot-on-sight approach than normal and finished with two goals an…
Paddington dates to 1838, although much of today's main line station is from 1854. And it is, of course, a Brunellian masterstroke.
Etymology
From master + stroke.
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 "masterstroke", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).