pendragon
/pɛnˈdɹæɡ(ə)n/
"pendragon" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pendragon” is uncommon English (frequency #56,969 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,969
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Also capitalized as Pendragon: a title assumed by the ancient British chiefs when called to lead other chiefs: chief war leader, chieftain, dictator, despot or king.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pendragon · pendragon · English
pendragon · rank #56,969 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,969
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH permaculture
Nearest frequency peer: permaculture (+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 “pendragon”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- pally
pally
43,038 corpus weight
- param
param
43,037 corpus weight
- pendragon
pendragon
43,032 corpus weight
- permaculture
permaculture
43,030 corpus weight
- Philbin
Philbin
43,027 corpus weight
- philosophic
philosophic
43,026 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “pendragon” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pendragon |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɛnˈdɹæɡ(ə)n/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #56,969 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pendragon” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pendragon is uncommon English at frequency #56,969 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /pɛnˈdɹæɡ(ə)n/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Also capitalized as Pendragon: a title assumed by the ancient British chiefs when called to lead other chiefs: chief war leader, chieftain, dictator, despot or king.".
No misspelling variants are generated for pendragon in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English Pendragon, borrowed from Welsh pendragon (“chief war leader”), from pen (“head; chief; principal, supreme”) (ultimately from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom (“head”)) + dragon (“dragon; commander, war leader”) (from Latin dracō (“serpent, snake; d… The correct English form is pendragon, spelled P-E-N-D-R-A-G-O-N.
Definition
- 1Also capitalized as Pendragon: a title assumed by the ancient British chiefs when called to lead other chiefs: chief war leader, chieftain, dictator, despot or king.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pendragon appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[I]n the reign of Henry the Second, a body happening, by chance, to be dug up near Glastonbury Abbey, without any symptoms of putrefaction or decay, the Welch, the descendants of the Ancient Britons, tenacious of the dignity and reputation of that illustrious hero [King Arthur], vainly supposed it could be no other than the body of their justly-boasted Pe…
The regal dominion, then, held by the sovereigns of Britain in these ages seems most properly described as an elective monarchy made hereditary; or, to take the converse of the proposition, as a hereditary monarchy requiring to be confirmed at the succession of each monarch by a popular election. […] There was this essential difference, as now in the case…
Etymology
From Middle English Pendragon, borrowed from Welsh pendragon (“chief war leader”), from pen (“head; chief; principal, supreme”) (ultimately from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom (“head”)) + dragon (“dragon; commander, war leader”) (from Latin dracō (“serpent, snake; dragon”), from Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων (drắkōn, “serpent; dragon”), possibly from δέρκομαι (dérkomai, “to see, see clearly (in the sense of something staring)”), from Proto-Indo-European *derḱ- (“to see”)). Compare Late Latin īnsulāris dracō (literally “dragon of the island”), used by the monk Saint Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570 AD) in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) as an epithet of Maelgwn Gwynedd (died c. 547), the king of Gwynedd.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pendragon", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).