melancholia
"melancholia" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“melancholia” is uncommon English (frequency #61,626 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #61,626
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy
Corpus desk
Index EN-melancholia · melancholia · English
melancholia · rank #61,626 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #61,626
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Menelaus
Nearest frequency peer: Menelaus (+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 “melancholia”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Marci
Marci
38,383 corpus weight
- Martineau
Martineau
38,380 corpus weight
- maxillofaci…
maxillofacial
38,378 corpus weight
- melancholia
melancholia
38,375 corpus weight
- Menelaus
Menelaus
38,374 corpus weight
- midriff
midriff
38,369 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “melancholia” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | melancholia |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #61,626 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “melancholia” in English
Rare enough to double-check
melancholia is uncommon English at frequency #61,626 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
melancholia has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Latin melancholia, which was in turn borrowed from the Ancient Greek medical term μελαγχολία (melankholía, “blackness of the bile”), from μέλας (mélas), μελαν- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + χολή (kholḗ, “bile”). Doublet of melancholy. The correct English form is melancholia, spelled M-E-L-A-N-C-H-O-L-I-A.
Definition
- 1Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy
- 2depression, characterised by irrational fears, guilt and apathy
Etymology
From Late Latin melancholia, which was in turn borrowed from the Ancient Greek medical term μελαγχολία (melankholía, “blackness of the bile”), from μέλας (mélas), μελαν- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + χολή (kholḗ, “bile”). Doublet of melancholy.
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 "melancholia", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).