medicine woman
"medicine-woman" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“medicine woman” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A female Native American (or, any other indigenous) shamanistic healer.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | medicine woman |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “medicine woman” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
medicine woman is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A female Native American (or, any other indigenous) shamanistic healer.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for medicine woman, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Probably a calque of Ojibwe mashkikiiwininiikwe (“female doctor”), from mashkiki (“medicine”) + inini (“man”) + ikwe (“woman”). The correct English form is medicine woman, spelled M-E-D-I-C-I-N-E- -W-O-M-A-N.
Definition
- 1A female Native American (or, any other indigenous) shamanistic healer.
Etymology
Probably a calque of Ojibwe mashkikiiwininiikwe (“female doctor”), from mashkiki (“medicine”) + inini (“man”) + ikwe (“woman”).
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “medicine woman”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-E-D-I-C-I-N-E- -W-O-M-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.