scintilla
/sɪnˈtɪlə/
"scintilla" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scintilla” is uncommon English (frequency #88,826 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #88,826
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A small spark or flash.
Corpus desk
Index EN-scintilla · scintilla · English
scintilla · rank #88,826 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #88,826
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH scrabbling
Nearest frequency peer: scrabbling (+3 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 “scintilla”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Sayeed
Sayeed
11,183 corpus weight
- Schaaf
Schaaf
11,179 corpus weight
- scintilla
scintilla
11,175 corpus weight
- scrabbling
scrabbling
11,172 corpus weight
- seismically
seismically
11,167 corpus weight
- selly
selly
11,164 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “scintilla” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | scintilla |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɪnˈtɪlə/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #88,826 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “scintilla” in English
Rare enough to double-check
scintilla is uncommon English at frequency #88,826 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /sɪnˈtɪlə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for scintilla, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. 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: Existing in English since the 17th century; borrowed from Latin scintilla (“spark”). The correct English form is scintilla, spelled S-C-I-N-T-I-L-L-A.
Definition
- 1A small spark or flash.
- 2A small or trace amount.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how scintilla appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
If the action of the electrodynamic waves is so violent that, even without artificial electrification of the secondary conductor, scintillæ occur in its spark-gap, the aluminium leaves remain almost without change.
a scintilla of hope
Etymology
Existing in English since the 17th century; borrowed from Latin scintilla (“spark”).
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 "scintilla", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).