quine
/kwaɪn/
"quine" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“quine” is uncommon English (frequency #62,437 among 2,880 “Q” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #62,437
- frequency rank, English
- 2,880
- “Q” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A program that produces its own source code as output.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | quine |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kwaɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #62,437 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “quine” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
quine is uncommon English at frequency #62,437 among 2,880 “Q” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /kwaɪn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A program that produces its own source code as output.".
quine has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Quine, named after the American logician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000). Verb etymology 1 sense 1 (“to append (a text) to a quotation of itself”) was coined by the American cognitive and computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (born … The correct English form is quine, spelled Q-U-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1A program that produces its own source code as output.
Etymology
From Quine, named after the American logician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000). Verb etymology 1 sense 1 (“to append (a text) to a quotation of itself”) was coined by the American cognitive and computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979; see the quotation), referring to Quine’s study of indirect self-reference and in particular Quine’s paradox, the following statement that produces a paradox: “‘Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation’ yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.” Hofstadter also referred to the concept of noun etymology 1 sense 1 (“program that produces its own source code as output”) in the book, but termed it a self-rep rather than a quine. Verb etymology 1 sense 2 (“to deny the importance or significance of (something obviously real or important)”) was independently coined by the American cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942–2024) in September 1969 in the original version of his work The Philosophical Lexicon: see the 1987 quotation.
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 “quine”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is Q-U-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kwaɪn/ (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.