officious
/əˈfɪʃəs/
"officious" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“officious” is uncommon English (frequency #86,589 among 1,431 “O” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,589
- frequency rank, English
- 1,431
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Obliging, attentive, eager to please.
Corpus desk
Index EN-officious · officious · English
officious · rank #86,589 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #86,589
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,431
- PHOTO-FINISH oga
Nearest frequency peer: oga (+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 “officious”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- obviousness
obviousness
13,418 corpus weight
- ODP
ODP
13,415 corpus weight
- officious
officious
13,412 corpus weight
- oga
oga
13,411 corpus weight
- Olmec
Olmec
13,407 corpus weight
- Olmos
Olmos
13,406 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “officious” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | officious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /əˈfɪʃəs/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #86,589 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “officious” in English
Rare enough to double-check
officious is uncommon English at frequency #86,589 among 1,431 “O” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /əˈfɪʃəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for officious in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: 15th century, from Middle English offycyous, from Latin officiōsus (“kindly”), from officium (“service”). The correct English form is officious, spelled O-F-F-I-C-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Obliging, attentive, eager to please.
- 2Offensively intrusive or interfering in offering advice and services.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how officious appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious attention!
‘It is essential that the nation become accustomed to managing its own affairs, so that it will emerge from this state of infancy in which an anxious and officious government attempts to keep the people’.
Etymology
15th century, from Middle English offycyous, from Latin officiōsus (“kindly”), from officium (“service”).
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 "officious", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).