Native American

noun

"native-american" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Native American” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
15
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A member of some Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Key facts for Native American
PropertyValue
HeadwordNative American
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters15
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “Native American” sits in English frequency

Native American falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Native American is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Native American, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is Native American, spelled N-A-T-I-V-E- -A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    A member of some Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
  2. 2
    An Indigenous person of the contiguous United States.
  3. 3
    A resident of the United States who is not an immigrant. (Often uncapitalized: native American.)

Synonyms

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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Native American"?
"Native American" is spelled N-A-T-I-V-E- -A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N.
What does "Native American" mean?
As a noun, "Native American" means: A member of some Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
What language does "Native American" come from?
"Native American" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Using “Native American”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is N-A-T-I-V-E- -A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list