prima facie
/ˈpɹiː.mə ˈfeɪ.siː/
"prima-facie" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“prima facie” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - At first sight; on the face of it.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | prima facie |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /ˈpɹiː.mə ˈfeɪ.siː/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “prima facie” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for prima facie is 11 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɹiː.mə ˈfeɪ.siː/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "At first sight; on the face of it.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for prima facie in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin prīmā (“first”) + faciē (“shape, figure”), literally “at the first appearance.” The correct English form is prima facie, spelled P-R-I-M-A- -F-A-C-I-E.
Definition
- 1At first sight; on the face of it.
Etymology
From Latin prīmā (“first”) + faciē (“shape, figure”), literally “at the first appearance.”
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “prima facie”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-R-I-M-A- -F-A-C-I-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpɹiː.mə ˈfeɪ.siː/ (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.