montane
/ˈmɒnteɪn/
"montane" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“montane” is uncommon English (frequency #66,846 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #66,846
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Of, inhabiting, or growing in mountain areas; specifically, the cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | montane |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈmɒnteɪn/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #66,846 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “montane” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
montane is uncommon English at frequency #66,846 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈmɒnteɪn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Of, inhabiting, or growing in mountain areas; specifically, the cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for montane, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: The adjective is derived from Latin montānus (“of or pertaining to a mountain”). Synchronically, it can be seen to have the suffix English -ane (variant of -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives)). Montānus is derived from mōns (“mount… The correct English form is montane, spelled M-O-N-T-A-N-E.
Definition
- 1Of, inhabiting, or growing in mountain areas; specifically, the cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline.
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Latin montānus (“of or pertaining to a mountain”). Synchronically, it can be seen to have the suffix English -ane (variant of -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives)). Montānus is derived from mōns (“mount, mountain”) (from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to stand out, to tower”)) + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’). The noun is probably derived from the adjective.
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.
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Using “montane”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-O-N-T-A-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmɒnteɪn/ (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.