patronise

verb

"patronise" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“patronise” is uncommon English (frequency #78,001 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#78,001
frequency rank, English
46,516
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of patronize.

Key facts for patronise
PropertyValue
Headwordpatronise
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters9
Frequency rank#78,001
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “patronise” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). patronise lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

patronise is uncommon English at frequency #78,001 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of patronize.".

Zero misspellings are on record for patronise in our index, 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, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: From patron + -ise. The correct English form is patronise, spelled P-A-T-R-O-N-I-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of patronize.

Etymology

From patron + -ise.

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 "patronise"?
"patronise" is spelled P-A-T-R-O-N-I-S-E.
What does "patronise" mean?
As a verb, "patronise" means: Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of patronize.
What is the origin of the word "patronise"?
From patron + -ise. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “patronise”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is P-A-T-R-O-N-I-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list