nursemaid
"nursemaid" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“nursemaid” is uncommon English (frequency #91,873 among 24,391 “N” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #91,873
- frequency rank, English
- 24,391
- “N” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A woman or girl employed to care for children.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nursemaid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #91,873 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “nursemaid” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
nursemaid is uncommon English at frequency #91,873 among 24,391 “N” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A woman or girl employed to care for children.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for nursemaid, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. 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 nurse + maid. The correct English form is nursemaid, spelled N-U-R-S-E-M-A-I-D.
Definition
- 1A woman or girl employed to care for children.
Etymology
From nurse + maid.
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); 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 "nursemaid"?
What does "nursemaid" mean?
What is the origin of the word "nursemaid"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “nursemaid”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-U-R-S-E-M-A-I-D - 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.