saboteur
/ˌsæbəˈtɜː(ɹ)/
"saboteur" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“saboteur” is uncommon English (frequency #59,686 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,686
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person who intentionally causes the destruction of property in order to hinder the efforts of their enemy.
Corpus desk
Index EN-saboteur · saboteur · English
saboteur · rank #59,686 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #59,686
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH saison
Nearest frequency peer: saison (+1 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 “saboteur”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- ritually
ritually
40,321 corpus weight
- roadrunner
roadrunner
40,319 corpus weight
- Rolla
Rolla
40,317 corpus weight
- saboteur
saboteur
40,315 corpus weight
- saison
saison
40,314 corpus weight
- Sappho
Sappho
40,311 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “saboteur” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | saboteur |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌsæbəˈtɜː(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #59,686 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “saboteur” in English
Rare enough to double-check
saboteur is uncommon English at frequency #59,686 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˌsæbəˈtɜː(ɹ)/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A person who intentionally causes the destruction of property in order to hinder the efforts of their enemy.".
saboteur has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French saboteur. The correct English form is saboteur, spelled S-A-B-O-T-E-U-R.
Definition
- 1A person who intentionally causes the destruction of property in order to hinder the efforts of their enemy.
Etymology
Borrowed from French saboteur.
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 "saboteur", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).