reality television

noun

"reality-television" is a 17-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“reality television” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
18
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A genre of television programming portraying one or more people who are not professional actors and depicting their reactions to given stimuli or goals.

Corpus desk

Index EN-reality-television · reality television · English

reality television · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 18 letters
  • VOW-9 9 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "R" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for reality television
PropertyValue
Headwordreality television
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters18
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “reality television” in English

reality televisionranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

reality television is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A genre of television programming portraying one or more people who are not professional actors and depicting their reactions to given stimuli or goals.".

reality television doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is reality television, spelled R-E-A-L-I-T-Y- -T-E-L-E-V-I-S-I-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    A genre of television programming portraying one or more people who are not professional actors and depicting their reactions to given stimuli or goals.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how reality television appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Live, Reality Television

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

How do you spell "reality television"?
"reality television" is spelled R-E-A-L-I-T-Y- -T-E-L-E-V-I-S-I-O-N.
What does "reality television" mean?
As a noun, "reality television" means: A genre of television programming portraying one or more people who are not professional actors and depicting their reactions to given stimuli or goals.
What language does "reality television" come from?
"reality television" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list