philately
/fɪˈlæt.ə.li/
"philately" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“philately” is uncommon English (frequency #88,709 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #88,709
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Stamp collecting.
Corpus desk
Index EN-philately · philately · English
philately · rank #88,709 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #88,709
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH pharaonic
Nearest frequency peer: pharaonic (-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 “philately”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Petoskey
Petoskey
11,296 corpus weight
- pharaonic
pharaonic
11,293 corpus weight
- philately
philately
11,292 corpus weight
- phosphodies…
phosphodiesterase
11,291 corpus weight
- photoelectr…
photoelectron
11,290 corpus weight
- pilfer
pilfer
11,288 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “philately” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | philately |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fɪˈlæt.ə.li/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #88,709 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “philately” in English
Rare enough to double-check
philately is uncommon English at frequency #88,709 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /fɪˈlæt.ə.li/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
philately has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: First use appears c. 1865. Borrowed from French philatélie, coined by French stamp collector Georges Herpin (in Le Collectionneur de Timbres-poste, Nov. 15, 1864) from Ancient Greek φιλέω (philéō, “I love”) + ἀτέλεια (atéleia), the closest word he could fin… The correct English form is philately, spelled P-H-I-L-A-T-E-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Stamp collecting.
- 2The study of postage stamps, postal routes, postal history, etc.
Etymology
First use appears c. 1865. Borrowed from French philatélie, coined by French stamp collector Georges Herpin (in Le Collectionneur de Timbres-poste, Nov. 15, 1864) from Ancient Greek φιλέω (philéō, “I love”) + ἀτέλεια (atéleia), the closest word he could find in Ancient Greek to the concept of “postage stamp”, from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + τέλος (télos, “tax”). This word serves as a reminder of the original function of postage stamps, now often forgotten: the cost of letter-carrying formerly was paid by the recipient; stamps indicated it had been pre-paid by the sender, thus the letters were “carriage-free”.
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 "philately", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).