Samhain
/ˈsaʊ.wən/
"samhain" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Samhain” is uncommon English (frequency #73,609 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,609
- frequency rank, English
- 54,294
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A holiday, falling on the night of 31 October to 1 November, celebrated by the ancient Celts and by modern neo-pagans as the beginning of winter and the new year, and a time during which the spirit...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Samhain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈsaʊ.wən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #73,609 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Samhain” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
Samhain is uncommon English at frequency #73,609 among 54,294 “S” headwords, classed as aproper noun, transcribed /ˈsaʊ.wən/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A holiday, falling on the night of 31 October to 1 November, celebrated by the ancient Celts and by modern neo-pagans as the beginning of winter and the new year, and a time during which the spirit...".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Samhain, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Irish Samhain. The correct English form is Samhain, spelled S-A-M-H-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1A holiday, falling on the night of 31 October to 1 November, celebrated by the ancient Celts and by modern neo-pagans as the beginning of winter and the new year, and a time during which the spirits of the dead could return to the earth.
Etymology
Borrowed from Irish Samhain.
Synonyms
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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Using “Samhain”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-A-M-H-A-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsaʊ.wən/ (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.