pilchard
/ˈpɪl.tʃəd/
"pilchard" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pilchard” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of various small oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pilchard · pilchard · English
pilchard · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 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 | pilchard |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpɪl.tʃəd/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pilchard” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pilchard is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈpɪl.tʃəd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any of various small oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for pilchard, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Unknown. Compare Dutch pelser. The correct English form is pilchard, spelled P-I-L-C-H-A-R-D.
Definition
- 1Any of various small oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how pilchard appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
1839, John Hookham Frere (translator), The Birds, lines 76–77, in Acharnians and two other plays He longs occasionally for human diet, His old Athenian fare: pilchards, for instance.
Etymology
Unknown. Compare Dutch pelser.
Synonyms
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.