phloem
/ˈfləʊ.əm/
"phloem" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“phloem” is uncommon English (frequency #83,620 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #83,620
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A vascular tissue in land plants primarily responsible for the distribution of sugars and nutrients manufactured in the shoot.
Corpus desk
Index EN-phloem · phloem · English
phloem · rank #83,620 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #83,620
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH phot
Nearest frequency peer: phot (+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 “phloem”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- peppering
peppering
16,389 corpus weight
- perspiring
perspiring
16,385 corpus weight
- phloem
phloem
16,381 corpus weight
- phot
phot
16,380 corpus weight
- photog
photog
16,379 corpus weight
- pinafore
pinafore
16,376 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “phloem” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | phloem |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈfləʊ.əm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #83,620 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “phloem” in English
Rare enough to double-check
phloem is uncommon English at frequency #83,620 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈfləʊ.əm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A vascular tissue in land plants primarily responsible for the distribution of sugars and nutrients manufactured in the shoot.".
phloem has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested in 1872. From German Phloëm, coined by Swiss botanist Carl Nägeli in 1858 from Ancient Greek φλόος (phlóos, “husk, bark”) + a Greek-sounding ending -em (cf. System). The correct English form is phloem, spelled P-H-L-O-E-M.
Definition
- 1A vascular tissue in land plants primarily responsible for the distribution of sugars and nutrients manufactured in the shoot.
Etymology
First attested in 1872. From German Phloëm, coined by Swiss botanist Carl Nägeli in 1858 from Ancient Greek φλόος (phlóos, “husk, bark”) + a Greek-sounding ending -em (cf. System).
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 "phloem", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).