poinsettia
/ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/
"poinsettia" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“poinsettia” is an uncommon English word, ranked #82,674 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #82,674
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant;; wid...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | poinsettia |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #82,674 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “poinsettia” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for poinsettia is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/. Corpus data places it at rank #82,674 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant;; wid...".
No generated misspelling entries exist for poinsettia in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: After the obsolete genus name Poinsettia, named after Joel Roberts Poinsett (19th-century US minister to Mexico); equivalent to Poinsett + -ia. The correct English form is poinsettia, spelled P-O-I-N-S-E-T-T-I-A.
Definition
- 1A plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant;; widely used in Christmas floral displays.
Etymology
After the obsolete genus name Poinsettia, named after Joel Roberts Poinsett (19th-century US minister to Mexico); equivalent to Poinsett + -ia.
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); 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 "poinsettia"?
What does "poinsettia" mean?
How do you pronounce "poinsettia"?
What is the origin of the word "poinsettia"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “poinsettia”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-O-I-N-S-E-T-T-I-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.