odorous
"odorous" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“odorous” is uncommon English (frequency #99,645 among 1,431 “O” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #99,645
- frequency rank, English
- 1,431
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having a distinctive odor.
Corpus desk
Index EN-odorous · odorous · English
odorous · rank #99,645 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #99,645
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,431
- PHOTO-FINISH odourless
Nearest frequency peer: odourless (+1 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 “odorous”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- novelette
novelette
364 corpus weight
- nuchal
nuchal
362 corpus weight
- O'Riordan
O'Riordan
359 corpus weight
- odorous
odorous
356 corpus weight
- odourless
odourless
355 corpus weight
- olfaction
olfaction
347 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “odorous” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | odorous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #99,645 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “odorous” in English
Rare enough to double-check
odorous is uncommon English at frequency #99,645 among 1,431 “O” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having a distinctive odor.".
odorous has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English odorous, from Medieval Latin odōrōsus, equivalent to odor + -ous. The correct English form is odorous, spelled O-D-O-R-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Having a distinctive odor.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how odorous appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The table was piled with odorous lilies.
Etymology
From Middle English odorous, from Medieval Latin odōrōsus, equivalent to odor + -ous.
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "odorous", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).