raffia
/ˈɹæfiə/
"raffia" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“raffia” is uncommon English (frequency #86,674 among 3,094 “R” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,674
- frequency rank, English
- 3,094
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A fibrous material used for tying plants, originating from the leaves of raffia palm trees (genus Raphia).
Corpus desk
Index EN-raffia · raffia · English
raffia · rank #86,674 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #86,674
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,094
- PHOTO-FINISH Ramanujan
Nearest frequency peer: Ramanujan (+2 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.
Long-tail ranks near “raffia”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- PVV
PVV
13,334 corpus weight
- Qamar
Qamar
13,333 corpus weight
- Queensferry
Queensferry
13,331 corpus weight
- quoth
quoth
13,330 corpus weight
- raffia
raffia
13,327 corpus weight
- Ramanujan
Ramanujan
13,325 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “raffia” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | raffia |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹæfiə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #86,674 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “raffia” in English
Rare enough to double-check
raffia is uncommon English at frequency #86,674 among 3,094 “R” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɹæfiə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A fibrous material used for tying plants, originating from the leaves of raffia palm trees (genus Raphia).".
raffia doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Malagasy rafia or rofia. The correct English form is raffia, spelled R-A-F-F-I-A.
Definition
- 1A fibrous material used for tying plants, originating from the leaves of raffia palm trees (genus Raphia).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how raffia appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He was pressed against the canes and raffia of which this old house was built.
Etymology
From Malagasy rafia or rofia.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "raffia", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).