murderess
/mɜːdəˈɹɛs/
"murderess" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“murderess” is uncommon English (frequency #97,332 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #97,332
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Female equivalent of murderer: a woman who commits murder.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | murderess |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɜːdəˈɹɛs/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #97,332 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “murderess” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
murderess is uncommon English at frequency #97,332 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /mɜːdəˈɹɛs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Female equivalent of murderer: a woman who commits murder.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for murderess, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. 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 Middle English morderes, from Old French morderesse, moeurdrese; equivalent to murder + -ess. The correct English form is murderess, spelled M-U-R-D-E-R-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1Female equivalent of murderer: a woman who commits murder.
Etymology
From Middle English morderes, from Old French morderesse, moeurdrese; equivalent to murder + -ess.
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 “murderess”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-U-R-D-E-R-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mɜːdəˈɹɛs/ (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.