Oligocene
"oligocene" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Oligocene” is uncommon English (frequency #55,622 among 1,431 “O” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,622
- frequency rank, English
- 1,431
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Of a geologic epoch within the Paleogene period from about 34 to 23 million years ago; marked by the rapid evolution in a warm climate.
Corpus desk
Index EN-oligocene · Oligocene · English
Oligocene · rank #55,622 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,622
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,431
- PHOTO-FINISH ods
Nearest frequency peer: ods (-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 “Oligocene”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
44,383 corpus weight
- nutcase
nutcase
44,382 corpus weight
- objectified
objectified
44,381 corpus weight
- ods
ods
44,380 corpus weight
- Oligocene
Oligocene
44,379 corpus weight
- OTL
OTL
44,376 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “Oligocene” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Oligocene |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #55,622 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “Oligocene” in English
Rare enough to double-check
Oligocene is uncommon English at frequency #55,622 among 1,431 “O” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Of a geologic epoch within the Paleogene period from about 34 to 23 million years ago; marked by the rapid evolution in a warm climate.".
Oligocene has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. 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 German Oligozän (originally spelt Oligocän, coined in 1854). By surface analysis, oligo- + -cene. The correct English form is Oligocene, spelled O-L-I-G-O-C-E-N-E.
Definition
- 1Of a geologic epoch within the Paleogene period from about 34 to 23 million years ago; marked by the rapid evolution in a warm climate.
Etymology
From German Oligozän (originally spelt Oligocän, coined in 1854). By surface analysis, oligo- + -cene.
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.
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Oligocene", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).