pentatonic
"pentatonic" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pentatonic” is uncommon English (frequency #72,634 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #72,634
- frequency rank, English
- 46,516
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Based on five tones.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pentatonic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #72,634 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pentatonic” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
pentatonic is uncommon English at frequency #72,634 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Based on five tones.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for pentatonic in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From penta- + tonic. The correct English form is pentatonic, spelled P-E-N-T-A-T-O-N-I-C.
Definition
- 1Based on five tones.
Etymology
From penta- + tonic.
This word in other languages
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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Using “pentatonic”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-E-N-T-A-T-O-N-I-C - 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.