sacrilegious
/sæk.ɹəˈlɪd͡ʒ.əs/
"sacrilegious" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sacrilegious” is uncommon English (frequency #57,692 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,692
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Committing sacrilege; acting or speaking very disrespectfully toward what is held to be sacred.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sacrilegious · sacrilegious · English
sacrilegious · rank #57,692 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #57,692
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH Ruthie
Nearest frequency peer: Ruthie (-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 “sacrilegious”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Rowntree
Rowntree
42,313 corpus weight
- Ruthie
Ruthie
42,310 corpus weight
- sacrilegious
sacrilegious
42,309 corpus weight
- sacrosanct
sacrosanct
42,308 corpus weight
- sandbag
sandbag
42,306 corpus weight
- sated
sated
42,305 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “sacrilegious” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sacrilegious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /sæk.ɹəˈlɪd͡ʒ.əs/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #57,692 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sacrilegious” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sacrilegious is uncommon English at frequency #57,692 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /sæk.ɹəˈlɪd͡ʒ.əs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Committing sacrilege; acting or speaking very disrespectfully toward what is held to be sacred.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for sacrilegious, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Compare sacrilege, Latin sacrilegus. From Latin sacer + legō (“steal something sacred”). The correct English form is sacrilegious, spelled S-A-C-R-I-L-E-G-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Committing sacrilege; acting or speaking very disrespectfully toward what is held to be sacred.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how sacrilegious appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
At one end of the room was spread a square carpet, and on it stood a table, on which were placed two most sacrilegious-looking wax-tapers: it is to be feared some poor sinner stayed longer in purgatory from the abduction of his offering.
Etymology
Compare sacrilege, Latin sacrilegus. From Latin sacer + legō (“steal something sacred”).
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 "sacrilegious", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).