osmium
/ˈɒz.mi.əm/
"osmium" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“osmium” is uncommon English (frequency #89,714 among 15,494 “O” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,714
- frequency rank, English
- 15,494
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A chemical element (symbol Os) with atomic number 76: a hard, brittle, heavy, bluish-white transition metal found as a trace element in alloys, mostly in platinum ores.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | osmium |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɒz.mi.əm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #89,714 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “osmium” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
osmium is uncommon English at frequency #89,714 among 15,494 “O” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɒz.mi.əm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
osmium has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek ὀσμή (osmḗ, “smell”) (because of the strong smell of its oxide) + -ium. The correct English form is osmium, spelled O-S-M-I-U-M.
Definition
- 1A chemical element (symbol Os) with atomic number 76: a hard, brittle, heavy, bluish-white transition metal found as a trace element in alloys, mostly in platinum ores.
- 2A single atom of this element.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ὀσμή (osmḗ, “smell”) (because of the strong smell of its oxide) + -ium.
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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Using “osmium”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-S-M-I-U-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɒz.mi.əm/ (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.