northwesterly
"northwesterly" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“northwesterly” is uncommon English (frequency #69,294 among 1,534 “N” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #69,294
- frequency rank, English
- 1,534
- “N” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Situated in, or pointing to, the northwest.
Corpus desk
Index EN-northwesterly · northwesterly · English
northwesterly · rank #69,294 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #69,294
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,534
- PHOTO-FINISH nontoxic
Nearest frequency peer: nontoxic (-3 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “northwesterly”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Noakes
Noakes
30,714 corpus weight
- nondisclosu…
nondisclosure
30,711 corpus weight
- nontoxic
nontoxic
30,710 corpus weight
- northwester…
northwesterly
30,707 corpus weight
- O'Loughlin
O'Loughlin
30,703 corpus weight
- obnoxiously
obnoxiously
30,701 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “northwesterly” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | northwesterly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 13 |
| Frequency rank | #69,294 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “northwesterly” in English
Rare enough to double-check
northwesterly is uncommon English at frequency #69,294 among 1,534 “N” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for northwesterly, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From north + westerly. The correct English form is northwesterly, spelled N-O-R-T-H-W-E-S-T-E-R-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Situated in, or pointing to, the northwest.
- 2Coming from the northwest.
Etymology
From north + westerly.
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
How do you spell "northwesterly"?
What does "northwesterly" mean?
What is the origin of the word "northwesterly"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "northwesterly", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 13 letters (nearest by frequency rank).