political

/pəˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl/

//pəˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl// adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"political" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“political” has 13 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #517. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#517
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords
13
tracked misspellings
6
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Concerning or relating to politics, the art and process of governing.

Corpus desk

Index EN-political · political · English

political · rank #517 · 13 variants · 6 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #517
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 6 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 13 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH plan

Nearest frequency peer: plan (-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.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “political”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “political” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

political vs politics
78% similar
political vs politico
78% similar
political vs politician
80% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for political
PropertyValue
Headwordpolitical
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
IPA/pəˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl/
Letters9
Frequency rank#517
Misspellings tracked13
Confusable pairs6
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “political”

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).politicallands here:

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

The axis is logarithmic, with each marked tick roughly ten times rarer than the last. Same rarity band neighbours include “plan” (#516), “quite” (#518), “non” (#515). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “political” is #517. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 13 spelling variants around political (IPA /pəˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #517 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for political, with forms such as "oplitical", "ploitical", and "poiltical". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 6 confusable-pair relationships, "politics", "politico", "politician", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Etymologically, the entry records: From politic + -al. The correct English form is political, spelled P-O-L-I-T-I-C-A-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Concerning or relating to politics, the art and process of governing.
  2. 2
    Concerning a polity or its administrative components.
  3. 3
    Inappropriately motivated by political calculation, as it pertains to elections, power dynamics, ideologies, etc.
  4. 4
    Of or relating to views about social relationships that involve power, standing, influence or conflict.
  5. 5
    Interested in politics.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Political principles are rarely absolute, as political logic holds an imperfect result by compromise is better than a theoretically perfect abstention from the political process in the opposition.
  2. As a political system democracy seems to me extraordinarily foolish, but I would not go out of my way to protest against it. My servant is, so far as I am concerned, welcome to as many votes as he can get. I would very gladly make mine over to him if I could.

Etymology

From politic + -al.

Synonyms

politic

Antonyms

nonpoliticalnon-political

This word in other languages

político(Español)politique(Français)politisch(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • oplitical
  • ploitical
  • poiltical
  • poliitcal
  • politcial
  • politiacl
  • politicall
  • politiccal
  • politicla
  • polittical
  • pollitical
  • poltiical
  • ppolitical

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of political - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

oplitical2ploitical2poiltical2poliitcal2politcial2politiacl2politicall1politiccal1
Edit distance from "political"

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 "political"?
"political" is spelled P-O-L-I-T-I-C-A-L. The IPA pronunciation is /pəˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl/.
What does "political" mean?
As an adjective, "political" means: Concerning or relating to politics, the art and process of governing.
What words are commonly confused with "political"?
"political" is commonly confused with "politics", "politico", "politician". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "political"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "political" is /pəˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "political"?
From politic + -al. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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 "political", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

according#523available#524education#526sometimes#533

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (13 here; floor ≥5).

students13 variantsthinking13 variantsprobably13 variantsespecially13 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list