motherless
"motherless" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“motherless” is uncommon English (frequency #61,649 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #61,649
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Without a (living) mother.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | motherless |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #61,649 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “motherless” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
motherless is uncommon English at frequency #61,649 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for motherless, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English moderles, from Old English mōdorlēas, from Proto-Germanic *mōdērlausaz, equivalent to mother + -less. Cognate with Saterland Frisian muurloos (“motherless”), Dutch moederloos (“motherless”), German mutterlos (“motherless”), Danish moderl… The correct English form is motherless, spelled M-O-T-H-E-R-L-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1Without a (living) mother.
- 2Without mother (mucilaginous substance in fermenting liquid).
- 3Without a history or predecessor.
Etymology
From Middle English moderles, from Old English mōdorlēas, from Proto-Germanic *mōdērlausaz, equivalent to mother + -less. Cognate with Saterland Frisian muurloos (“motherless”), Dutch moederloos (“motherless”), German mutterlos (“motherless”), Danish moderløs (“motherless”), Swedish moderlös (“motherless”), Icelandic móðurlaus (“motherless”).
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 “motherless”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-O-T-H-E-R-L-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.