sceptical
"sceptical" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sceptical” has 14 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #25,920. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #25,920
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Commonwealth standard spelling of skeptical.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sceptical · sceptical · English
sceptical · rank #25,920 · 14 variants · 1 confusable
- FREQ-MID #25,920
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 1 pairs
- VAR-HIGH 14 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH scarecrow
Nearest frequency peer: scarecrow (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “sceptical”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- Sargent
Sargent
74,084 corpus weight
- Savoy
Savoy
74,083 corpus weight
- scarecrow
scarecrow
74,082 corpus weight
- sceptical
sceptical
74,081 corpus weight
- scrubbing
scrubbing
74,080 corpus weight
- SEQ
SEQ
74,079 corpus weight
What this shows “sceptical” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sceptical |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #25,920 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “sceptical”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 14 spelling variants around sceptical, anadjective. Corpus frequency is #25,920 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Commonwealth standard spelling of skeptical.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for sceptical, with forms such as "cseptical", "scceptical", and "scepitcal". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "skeptical", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: By surface analysis, sceptic + -al. The correct English form is sceptical, spelled S-C-E-P-T-I-C-A-L.
Definition
- 1Commonwealth standard spelling of skeptical.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sceptical appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But regardless of what they made of phrenology, those who saw craniometry as a means of measuring the relative weight of intelligence and emotion in psychological makeup were generally sceptical as to whether, as Blumenbach and Camper believed, humanity had branched from one ancestral pair into varietal types as a result of colonising different continents.
And according to Hughes, HM Treasury is still sceptical about rail electrification. "It's not because they don't see electrification as a good thing, but I think when you look at it from the UK-wide perspective, if you have £x billion to spend on decarbonisation, you don't necessarily start with rail. Rail's not where you get the biggest bang for the buck…
Etymology
By surface analysis, sceptic + -al.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- cseptical
- scceptical
- scepitcal
- scepptical
- sceptcial
- sceptiacl
- scepticall
- scepticcal
- scepticla
- scepttical
- scetpical
- scpetical
- secptical
- ssceptical
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sceptical - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "sceptical"?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sceptical", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (14 here; floor ≥5).