pseudoephedrine
/sjuː.dəʊˈɛf.ə.dɹiːn/
"pseudoephedrine" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pseudoephedrine” is uncommon English (frequency #76,241 among 46,516 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #76,241
- frequency rank, English
- 46,516
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A sympathomimetic alkaloid commonly used as a decongestant; a chemical compound, an isomer of ephedrine, with the formula C₁₀H₁₅NO.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pseudoephedrine |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sjuː.dəʊˈɛf.ə.dɹiːn/ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Frequency rank | #76,241 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pseudoephedrine” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
pseudoephedrine is uncommon English at frequency #76,241 among 46,516 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /sjuː.dəʊˈɛf.ə.dɹiːn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A sympathomimetic alkaloid commonly used as a decongestant; a chemical compound, an isomer of ephedrine, with the formula C₁₀H₁₅NO.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for pseudoephedrine, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From pseudo- + ephedrine. The correct English form is pseudoephedrine, spelled P-S-E-U-D-O-E-P-H-E-D-R-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1A sympathomimetic alkaloid commonly used as a decongestant; a chemical compound, an isomer of ephedrine, with the formula C₁₀H₁₅NO.
Etymology
From pseudo- + ephedrine.
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 “pseudoephedrine”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-S-E-U-D-O-E-P-H-E-D-R-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sjuː.dəʊˈɛf.ə.dɹiːn/ (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.