olfaction
/oʊlˈfækʃən/
"olfaction" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“olfaction” is an uncommon English word, ranked #99,654 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #99,654
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | olfaction |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /oʊlˈfækʃən/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #99,654 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “olfaction” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for olfaction is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /oʊlˈfækʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #99,654 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for olfaction in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Middle French olfaction /olefaction, from Latin olfactus, perfect passive participle of olfaciō (“to smell (transitive)”) + -tion. The correct English form is olfaction, spelled O-L-F-A-C-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1The sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French olfaction /olefaction, from Latin olfactus, perfect passive participle of olfaciō (“to smell (transitive)”) + -tion.
Antonyms
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 “olfaction”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-L-F-A-C-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /oʊlˈfækʃən/ (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
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.