paucity
/ˈpɒs.ɪ.ti/
"paucity" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“paucity” has 10 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #46,680. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #46,680
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - Fewness in number; too few.
Corpus desk
Index EN-paucity · paucity · English
paucity · rank #46,680 · 10 variants · 3 confusables
- FREQ-MID #46,680
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
- VAR-MID 10 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH parley
Nearest frequency peer: parley (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “paucity”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- palatial
palatial
53,325 corpus weight
- Pappas
Pappas
53,324 corpus weight
- parley
parley
53,323 corpus weight
- paucity
paucity
53,321 corpus weight
- Pavlov
Pavlov
53,319 corpus weight
- peculiarly
peculiarly
53,318 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “paucity” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | paucity |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpɒs.ɪ.ti/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #46,680 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “paucity” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 10 spelling variants around paucity (IPA /ˈpɒs.ɪ.ti/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #46,680 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for paucity, with forms such as "apucity", "pacuity", and "pauccity". 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 also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "purity", "parity", "pacify", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English paucete, paucite, paucyte, partly from Middle French paucité and partly from its etymon, Latin paucitās (“a small number, fewness, scarcity”), from paucus (“few, little”). Related to few. The correct English form is paucity, spelled P-A-U-C-I-T-Y.
Definition
- 1Fewness in number; too few.
- 2A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how paucity appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves.
For sheer paucity of railway facilities, probably the record in Great Britain is held by the Scottish county of Nairn, which has about eight miles of railway and two stations—Nairn and Auldearn.
Etymology
From Middle English paucete, paucite, paucyte, partly from Middle French paucité and partly from its etymon, Latin paucitās (“a small number, fewness, scarcity”), from paucus (“few, little”). Related to few.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- apucity
- pacuity
- pauccity
- paucitty
- paucityy
- pauciyt
- pauctiy
- pauicty
- ppaucity
- puacity
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of paucity - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "paucity", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).
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.