paternalistic
"paternalistic" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“paternalistic” is uncommon English (frequency #55,635 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,635
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - the quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in a benevolent yet intrusive manner towards underlings
Corpus desk
Index EN-paternalistic · paternalistic · English
paternalistic · rank #55,635 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,635
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH parquet
Nearest frequency peer: parquet (-2 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 “paternalistic”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- palmas
palmas
44,373 corpus weight
- paralleling
paralleling
44,371 corpus weight
- parquet
parquet
44,368 corpus weight
- paternalist…
paternalistic
44,366 corpus weight
- perdition
perdition
44,362 corpus weight
- Pez
Pez
44,360 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “paternalistic” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | paternalistic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 13 |
| Frequency rank | #55,635 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “paternalistic” in English
Rare enough to double-check
paternalistic is uncommon English at frequency #55,635 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for paternalistic, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From paternal + -istic. The correct English form is paternalistic, spelled P-A-T-E-R-N-A-L-I-S-T-I-C.
Definition
- 1the quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in a benevolent yet intrusive manner towards underlings
- 2of, pertaining to, characteristic of or practicing paternalism
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how paternalistic appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
With a scanty supply of laws in Hellenic commonwealths or city states what an immense vista for an Aristotle, of that grand, complex, efficient machinery of law, turning out yearly thousands of laws and taboos for the paternalistic control and alleged welfare of the citizen!
Etymology
From paternal + -istic.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "paternalistic", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 13 letters (nearest by frequency rank).