neocortex
"neocortex" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“neocortex” is uncommon English (frequency #73,473 among 24,391 “N” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,473
- frequency rank, English
- 24,391
- “N” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The top layer of the cerebral hemispheres in the brain of mammals; part of the cerebral cortex.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | neocortex |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #73,473 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “neocortex” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
neocortex is uncommon English at frequency #73,473 among 24,391 “N” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The top layer of the cerebral hemispheres in the brain of mammals; part of the cerebral cortex.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for neocortex, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From neo- + cortex. The correct English form is neocortex, spelled N-E-O-C-O-R-T-E-X.
Definition
- 1The top layer of the cerebral hemispheres in the brain of mammals; part of the cerebral cortex.
Etymology
From neo- + cortex.
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 “neocortex”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-E-O-C-O-R-T-E-X - 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.