operose
/ˈɒpəɹəʊs/
"operose" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“operose” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Of a person: busy, industrious, or painstaking.
Corpus desk
Index EN-operose · operose · English
operose · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | operose |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɒpəɹəʊs/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “operose” in English
Rare enough to double-check
operose is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈɒpəɹəʊs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for operose, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin operōsus. The correct English form is operose, spelled O-P-E-R-O-S-E.
Definition
- 1Of a person: busy, industrious, or painstaking.
- 2Made with or requiring a lot of labour; painstaking, laborious.
- 3Tedious, wearisome.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how operose appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
When this operose and hard-working student descended from his closet, and gained a sort of tacit leave from his tutor to join in the circle of us gay and high-spirited fellows, the part he played was no more advantageous to him, than his former exhibition had been among the learned.
Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operoſe machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body […]
Etymology
From Latin operōsus.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.