perishing
"perishing" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“perishing” is uncommon English (frequency #66,920 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #66,920
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Extremely cold.
Corpus desk
Index EN-perishing · perishing · English
perishing · rank #66,920 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #66,920
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH peaceably
Nearest frequency peer: peaceably (-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 “perishing”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- parfum
parfum
33,085 corpus weight
- patisserie
patisserie
33,084 corpus weight
- peaceably
peaceably
33,082 corpus weight
- perishing
perishing
33,081 corpus weight
- Pernod
Pernod
33,080 corpus weight
- Philemon
Philemon
33,078 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “perishing” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | perishing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #66,920 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “perishing” in English
Rare enough to double-check
perishing is uncommon English at frequency #66,920 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for perishing in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is perishing, spelled P-E-R-I-S-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Extremely cold.
- 2Extreme; used of environmental or bodily conditions.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how perishing appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
If many more white men knew of this method of obtaining and extracting water, there would be, perhaps, many saved from the horrors of perishing thirst.
A boulder ground into Joe's thigh and he yelled for what seemed an eternity in the perishing heat but, apart from a few bird calls, the horse's laboured breath was the only sound he heard.
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 "perishing", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).