pentatonic
"pentatonic" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pentatonic” is uncommon English (frequency #72,634 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #72,634
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Based on five tones.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pentatonic · pentatonic · English
pentatonic · rank #72,634 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #72,634
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH PBM
Nearest frequency peer: PBM (-1 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 “pentatonic”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Parthian
Parthian
27,371 corpus weight
- Pathak
Pathak
27,370 corpus weight
- PBM
PBM
27,368 corpus weight
- pentatonic
pentatonic
27,367 corpus weight
- perching
perching
27,366 corpus weight
- perversity
perversity
27,364 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “pentatonic” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| 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) |
Long-tail rank of “pentatonic” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pentatonic is uncommon English at frequency #72,634 among 4,417 “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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how pentatonic appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The middle movement is completely pentatonic, giving it an unusual sound.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pentatonic", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).