sensu
"sensu" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sensu” is uncommon English (frequency #74,493 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a preposition. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,493
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - in the sense of
Corpus desk
Index EN-sensu · sensu · English
sensu · rank #74,493 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #74,493
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH Sela
Nearest frequency peer: Sela (-2 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 “sensu”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- seely
seely
25,512 corpus weight
- seki
seki
25,511 corpus weight
- Sela
Sela
25,510 corpus weight
- sensu
sensu
25,508 corpus weight
- Sharples
Sharples
25,503 corpus weight
- shekel
shekel
25,502 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “sensu” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sensu |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Preposition |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #74,493 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sensu” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sensu is uncommon English at frequency #74,493 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as apreposition. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "in the sense of".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for sensu, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. 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: Borrowed from Latin sensu. The correct English form is sensu, spelled S-E-N-S-U.
Definition
- 1in the sense of
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sensu appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The Testudinoidea contains two well supported groups: a restricted Emydidae (sensu Gaffney, 1975), and the currently unnamed group that includes the Bataguridae and Testudinidae for which Shaffer et al. (1997) propose the name Testudinoidae.
The Halictini includes 23 genera sensu Michener (2000), of which Patellapis Friese is one of the least known genera.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin sensu.
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 "sensu", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).