misfiring

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"misfiring" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“misfiring” is uncommon English (frequency #88,617 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#88,617
frequency rank, English
4,057
“M” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The situation where something misfires.

Corpus desk

Index EN-misfiring · misfiring · English

misfiring · rank #88,617 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #88,617
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,057
  • PHOTO-FINISH misapprehensi…

Nearest frequency peer: misapprehension (-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 “misfiring”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “misfiring” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for misfiring
PropertyValue
Headwordmisfiring
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Frequency rank#88,617
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “misfiring” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).misfiringfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Rare peers in the same band: “misapprehension” (#88,616), “mindfuck” (#88,614), “mixology” (#88,620). Among 4,057 “M” headwords, “misfiring” is #88,617. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

misfiring is uncommon English at frequency #88,617 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The situation where something misfires.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for misfiring, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is misfiring, spelled M-I-S-F-I-R-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    The situation where something misfires.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how misfiring appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. He has written a book that not only contributes to our understanding of the elusive magic of music but also illuminates the strange workings, and misfirings, of the human mind.

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

How do you spell "misfiring"?
"misfiring" is spelled M-I-S-F-I-R-I-N-G.
What does "misfiring" mean?
As a noun, "misfiring" means: The situation where something misfires.
What language does "misfiring" come from?
"misfiring" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "misfiring", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

mortgagee#88,624Lundquist#88,556Loveridge#88,553pharaonic#88,708

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list