meritocracy
/mɛɹɪˈtɒkɹəsi/
"meritocracy" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“meritocracy” is uncommon English (frequency #50,066 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,066
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Rule by merit and talent.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | meritocracy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɛɹɪˈtɒkɹəsi/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #50,066 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “meritocracy” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
meritocracy is uncommon English at frequency #50,066 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /mɛɹɪˈtɒkɹəsi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for meritocracy in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From merit + -o- + -cracy, coined by British sociologist Alan Fox in 1956 in an article in Socialist Commentary from May 1956, used as a derisive term, and popularized by British sociologist Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington in his 1958 book The Rise… The correct English form is meritocracy, spelled M-E-R-I-T-O-C-R-A-C-Y.
Definition
- 1Rule by merit and talent.
- 2A type of society where wealth, income, and social status are assigned through competition.
Etymology
From merit + -o- + -cracy, coined by British sociologist Alan Fox in 1956 in an article in Socialist Commentary from May 1956, used as a derisive term, and popularized by British sociologist Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington in his 1958 book The Rise of the Meritocracy.
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 “meritocracy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-E-R-I-T-O-C-R-A-C-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mɛɹɪˈtɒkɹəsi/ (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.