pestilent
/ˈpɛstələnt/
"pestilent" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pestilent” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Highly injurious or destructive to life: deadly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pestilent · pestilent · English
pestilent · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pestilent |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈpɛstələnt/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pestilent” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pestilent is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈpɛstələnt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
pestilent doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. 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: Middle English, from Latin pestilens, from Latin pestis. The correct English form is pestilent, spelled P-E-S-T-I-L-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1Highly injurious or destructive to life: deadly.
- 2Annoying.
- 3Harmful to morals or public order.
Etymology
Middle English, from Latin pestilens, from Latin pestis.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.