poultice
/ˈpoʊltɪs/
"poultice" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“poultice” is uncommon English (frequency #77,108 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,108
- frequency rank, English
- 46,516
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A soft, moist mass, usually wrapped in cloth and warmed, that is applied topically to a sore, aching or lesioned part of the body to soothe it.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | poultice |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpoʊltɪs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #77,108 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “poultice” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
poultice is uncommon English at frequency #77,108 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈpoʊltɪs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for poultice, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pultes, from Latin pultes, plural of puls. The phonological development from Middle English is regular; compare poultry. The correct English form is poultice, spelled P-O-U-L-T-I-C-E.
Definition
- 1A soft, moist mass, usually wrapped in cloth and warmed, that is applied topically to a sore, aching or lesioned part of the body to soothe it.
- 2A porous solid filled with solvent, used to remove stains from porous stone such as marble or granite.
Etymology
From Middle English pultes, from Latin pultes, plural of puls. The phonological development from Middle English is regular; compare poultry.
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
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Using “poultice”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-O-U-L-T-I-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpoʊltɪs/ (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
Other uncommon English words near this 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.