sensationalist
"sensationalist" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sensationalist” is uncommon English (frequency #55,726 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,726
- frequency rank, English
- 54,294
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Sensationalistic; tending to sensationalize; characterized by sensationalism (the use of exaggerated or lurid material in order to gain public attention).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sensationalist |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 14 |
| Frequency rank | #55,726 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sensationalist” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
sensationalist is uncommon English at frequency #55,726 among 54,294 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Sensationalistic; tending to sensationalize; characterized by sensationalism (the use of exaggerated or lurid material in order to gain public attention).".
No generated misspelling entries exist for sensationalist in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From sensational + -ist. The correct English form is sensationalist, spelled S-E-N-S-A-T-I-O-N-A-L-I-S-T.
Definition
- 1Sensationalistic; tending to sensationalize; characterized by sensationalism (the use of exaggerated or lurid material in order to gain public attention).
Etymology
From sensational + -ist.
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 “sensationalist”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-E-N-S-A-T-I-O-N-A-L-I-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.