nominalism
"nominalism" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“nominalism” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A doctrine that universals do not have an existence except as names for classes of concrete objects.
Corpus desk
Index EN-nominalism · nominalism · English
nominalism · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "N" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nominalism |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “nominalism” in English
Rare enough to double-check
nominalism is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A doctrine that universals do not have an existence except as names for classes of concrete objects.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for nominalism, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French nominalisme. By surface analysis, nominal + -ism. The correct English form is nominalism, spelled N-O-M-I-N-A-L-I-S-M.
Definition
- 1A doctrine that universals do not have an existence except as names for classes of concrete objects.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how nominalism appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Blumenberg's thesis, which has since been reiterated by a number of philosophers and historians, is that nominalism, as it became widespread in Protestant theology, led to the Enlightenment, disenchantment, and the scientific revolution.
Etymology
From French nominalisme. By surface analysis, nominal + -ism.
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.