outlandish
/ˌaʊtˈlændɪʃ/
"outlandish" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“outlandish” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #26,539 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #26,539
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Of or from a foreign country; not indigenous or native; alien, foreign.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | outlandish |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˌaʊtˈlændɪʃ/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #26,539 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “outlandish” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for outlandish is 10 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌaʊtˈlændɪʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,539 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for outlandish, with forms such as "otulandish", "oultandish", and "outalndish". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The adjective is derived from Middle English outlandisch, outlondish (“foreign”), from Old English ūtlendisċ (“foreign; strange, outlandish”), from Proto-West Germanic *ūtlandisk, from Proto-Germanic *ūtlandiskaz, from *ūtlandą (“(adjective) alien, foreign;… The correct English form is outlandish, spelled O-U-T-L-A-N-D-I-S-H.
Definition
- 1Of or from a foreign country; not indigenous or native; alien, foreign.
- 2Appearing to be foreign; strange, unfamiliar.
- 3Greatly different from common experience; bizarre, outrageous, strange.
- 4Of a place: far away from where most people are located; in the middle of nowhere, out of the way, remote.
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Middle English outlandisch, outlondish (“foreign”), from Old English ūtlendisċ (“foreign; strange, outlandish”), from Proto-West Germanic *ūtlandisk, from Proto-Germanic *ūtlandiskaz, from *ūtlandą (“(adjective) alien, foreign; relating to outlying land; (noun) foreign land; outlying land”) + *-iskaz (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘characteristic of; pertaining to’). *Ūtlandą is derived from *ūt- (suffix meaning ‘beyond; external to, on the outside of’) (from Proto-Indo-European *úd (“away; out, outward; upwards”)) + *landą (“area of ground, land”) (from Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (“heath; land”)). By surface analysis, outland + -ish. The noun is derived from the adjective. Cognates * Danish udenlandsk (“foreign, non-domestic”) * Dutch uitlands (dated) (now buitenlands (“foreign, non-domestic”)), Dutch uitlandig (“absent from the home country”) (now chiefly Suriname) * Faroese útlendskur (“foreign, non-domestic”) * German ausländisch (“foreign, non-domestic”) * Icelandic útlenskur (“foreign”) * Swedish utländsk (“foreign, non-domestic”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: otulandish,oultandish,outalndish,outladnish,outlanddish,outlandihs,outlandishh,outlandissh,outlandsih,outlanidsh,outlanndish,outllandish,outlnadish,outtlandish,uotlandish
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of outlandish - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "outlandish"?
What does "outlandish" mean?
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Using “outlandish”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-U-T-L-A-N-D-I-S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌaʊtˈlændɪʃ/ (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.