oesophagus
/iːˈsɒfəɡəs/
"oesophagus" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“oesophagus” is uncommon English (frequency #63,114 among 15,494 “O” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,114
- frequency rank, English
- 15,494
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The tube that carries food from the pharynx to the stomach.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | oesophagus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /iːˈsɒfəɡəs/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #63,114 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “oesophagus” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
oesophagus is uncommon English at frequency #63,114 among 15,494 “O” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /iːˈsɒfəɡəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The tube that carries food from the pharynx to the stomach.".
Zero misspellings are on record for oesophagus in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek οἰσοφάγος (oisophágos), from οἴσω (oísō), future form of φέρω (phérō, “I carry”) + ἔφαγον (éphagon, “I ate”). The correct English form is oesophagus, spelled O-E-S-O-P-H-A-G-U-S.
Definition
- 1The tube that carries food from the pharynx to the stomach.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek οἰσοφάγος (oisophágos), from οἴσω (oísō), future form of φέρω (phérō, “I carry”) + ἔφαγον (éphagon, “I ate”).
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 “oesophagus”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-E-S-O-P-H-A-G-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /iːˈsɒfəɡəs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.