phonebook
/ˈfoʊnˌbʊk/
"phonebook" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“phonebook” is uncommon English (frequency #82,663 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #82,663
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A directory of all the phone numbers used in a district.
Corpus desk
Index EN-phonebook · phonebook · English
phonebook · rank #82,663 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #82,663
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH Phillis
Nearest frequency peer: Phillis (-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 “phonebook”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- pharmacopoe…
pharmacopoeia
17,342 corpus weight
- Phillis
Phillis
17,339 corpus weight
- phonebook
phonebook
17,338 corpus weight
- physiograph…
physiographic
17,337 corpus weight
- pickpocketi…
pickpocketing
17,335 corpus weight
- piecewise
piecewise
17,334 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “phonebook” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | phonebook |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈfoʊnˌbʊk/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #82,663 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “phonebook” in English
Rare enough to double-check
phonebook is uncommon English at frequency #82,663 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈfoʊnˌbʊk/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for phonebook, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: From phone + book. The correct English form is phonebook, spelled P-H-O-N-E-B-O-O-K.
Definition
- 1A directory of all the phone numbers used in a district.
- 2A large lookup table.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how phonebook appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
One even proposes, in a workaday monotone, that the first hundred people in any Idaho phonebook could do just as well as the legislators at making decisions in the capital.
He does this by using the Domain Name System, or DNS, which is the phonebook for the Internet.
Etymology
From phone + book.
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 "phonebook", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).