self-flagellatory
"self-flagellatory" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“self-flagellatory” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Characterized by self-flagellation; extremely repentant.
Corpus desk
Index EN-self-flagellatory · self-flagellatory · English
self-flagellatory · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | self-flagellatory |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “self-flagellatory” in English
Rare enough to double-check
self-flagellatory is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for self-flagellatory, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is self-flagellatory, spelled S-E-L-F---F-L-A-G-E-L-L-A-T-O-R-Y.
Definition
- 1Characterized by self-flagellation; extremely repentant.
- 2Self-sacrificing.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how self-flagellatory appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In this sense, the currently fashionable self-flagellatory school of history is, at the very least, as arrogant and self-centered as the more traditional kind of self-serving history.
There is often a muted mea culpa in these semi-autobiographical musings, a self-flagellatory tone that immediately relieves the reader of any suspicions of romanticism or nostalgia about a bygone age and a lost youth.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.