misdemeanour
"misdemeanour" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“misdemeanour” is uncommon English (frequency #74,322 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,322
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative form of misdemeanor.
Corpus desk
Index EN-misdemeanour · misdemeanour · English
misdemeanour · rank #74,322 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #74,322
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH Mima
Nearest frequency peer: Mima (-2 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 “misdemeanour”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Michaelson
Michaelson
25,685 corpus weight
- mickle
mickle
25,684 corpus weight
- Mima
Mima
25,681 corpus weight
- misdemeanour
misdemeanour
25,679 corpus weight
- mmh
mmh
25,677 corpus weight
- motored
motored
25,674 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “misdemeanour” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | misdemeanour |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #74,322 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “misdemeanour” in English
Rare enough to double-check
misdemeanour is uncommon English at frequency #74,322 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative form of misdemeanor.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for misdemeanour in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From mis- + demeanour. The correct English form is misdemeanour, spelled M-I-S-D-E-M-E-A-N-O-U-R.
Definition
- 1Alternative form of misdemeanor.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how misdemeanour appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Therefore, welcome new Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper, a man about whom even my esteemed political journalist friends know little - apart from the fact he was once Chief Whip, a job that requires knowing about every Tory MP's misdemeanours.
Etymology
From mis- + demeanour.
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 "misdemeanour", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).