plaintext
"plaintext" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“plaintext” is uncommon English (frequency #66,199 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #66,199
- frequency rank, English
- 46,516
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Alternative spelling of plain text.
Corpus desk
Index EN-plaintext · plaintext · English
plaintext · rank #66,199 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #66,199
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 46,516
- PHOTO-FINISH Plante
Nearest frequency peer: Plante (+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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “plaintext”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Pierpont
Pierpont
33,807 corpus weight
- Pimentel
Pimentel
33,805 corpus weight
- pitiless
pitiless
33,804 corpus weight
- plaintext
plaintext
33,802 corpus weight
- Plante
Plante
33,801 corpus weight
- polyphony
polyphony
33,795 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “plaintext” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | plaintext |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #66,199 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “plaintext” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
plaintext is uncommon English at frequency #66,199 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative spelling of plain text.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for plaintext, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is plaintext, spelled P-L-A-I-N-T-E-X-T.
Definition
- 1Alternative spelling of plain text.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "plaintext"?
What does "plaintext" mean?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "plaintext", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.