perilously
"perilously" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“perilously” is uncommon English (frequency #63,884 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,884
- frequency rank, English
- 46,516
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - In a perilous manner.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | perilously |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #63,884 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “perilously” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
perilously is uncommon English at frequency #63,884 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In a perilous manner.".
Zero misspellings are on record for perilously in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English perilously; equivalent to perilous + -ly. The correct English form is perilously, spelled P-E-R-I-L-O-U-S-L-Y.
Definition
- 1In a perilous manner.
Etymology
From Middle English perilously; equivalent to perilous + -ly.
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 “perilously”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-E-R-I-L-O-U-S-L-Y - 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.