misbirth

noun

"misbirth" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“misbirth” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An abortion.

Corpus desk

Index EN-misbirth · misbirth · English

misbirth · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-2 2 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.

Key facts for misbirth
PropertyValue
Headwordmisbirth
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “misbirth” in English

misbirthsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

misbirth is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An abortion.".

misbirth doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English, from Old English misbyrd (“abortion”), from Proto-Germanic *missa- (“mis-”) +*burdiz, *burþiz (“birth, carriage”). Equivalent to mis- + birth. Cognate with Dutch misgeboorte (“miscarriage”), German Missgeburt (“abortion”). Compare also … The correct English form is misbirth, spelled M-I-S-B-I-R-T-H.

Definition

  1. 1
    An abortion.

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old English misbyrd (“abortion”), from Proto-Germanic *missa- (“mis-”) +*burdiz, *burþiz (“birth, carriage”). Equivalent to mis- + birth. Cognate with Dutch misgeboorte (“miscarriage”), German Missgeburt (“abortion”). Compare also misbreyde.

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

How do you spell "misbirth"?
"misbirth" is spelled M-I-S-B-I-R-T-H.
What does "misbirth" mean?
As a noun, "misbirth" means: An abortion.
What is the origin of the word "misbirth"?
From Middle English, from Old English misbyrd (“abortion”), from Proto-Germanic *missa- (“mis-”) +*burdiz, *burþiz (“birth, carriage”). Equivalent to mis- + birth. Cognate with Dutch misgeboorte (“miscarriage”), German Missgeburt (“abortion”). Com... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list