pickpocketing

noun

"pickpocketing" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“pickpocketing” is uncommon English (frequency #82,666 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#82,666
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The act of stealing from the pocket of a passerby; the crime committed by a pickpocket.

Corpus desk

Index EN-pickpocketing · pickpocketing · English

pickpocketing · rank #82,666 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #82,666
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH piecewise

Nearest frequency peer: piecewise (+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 “pickpocketing”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “pickpocketing” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for pickpocketing
PropertyValue
Headwordpickpocketing
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Frequency rank#82,666
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “pickpocketing” in English

This scale runs from the tiny cluster of words that carry ordinary speech (left) to the long tail of words almost nobody reaches for (right).pickpocketingfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

The axis is logarithmic, with each marked tick roughly ten times rarer than the last. Rare peers in the same band: “piecewise” (#82,667), “physiographic” (#82,664), “phonebook” (#82,663). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “pickpocketing” is #82,666. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

pickpocketing is uncommon English at frequency #82,666 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act of stealing from the pocket of a passerby; the crime committed by a pickpocket.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for pickpocketing, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is pickpocketing, spelled P-I-C-K-P-O-C-K-E-T-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    The act of stealing from the pocket of a passerby; the crime committed by a pickpocket.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how pickpocketing appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Copperfield says he turned his pockets inside out to reveal nothing in them, even though he was carrying his passport, wallet and cellphone. "Call it reverse pickpocketing," Copperfield told The Palm Beach Post for Wednesday's editions.
  2. The vast majority of crime in the capital is petty street crime, such as pickpocketing and “grab and runs.”

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

How do you spell "pickpocketing"?
"pickpocketing" is spelled P-I-C-K-P-O-C-K-E-T-I-N-G.
What does "pickpocketing" mean?
As a noun, "pickpocketing" means: The act of stealing from the pocket of a passerby; the crime committed by a pickpocket.
What language does "pickpocketing" come from?
"pickpocketing" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pickpocketing", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 13 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list