skittering
"skittering" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skittering” is uncommon English (frequency #93,158 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #93,158
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The act of one who skitters.
Corpus desk
Index EN-skittering · skittering · English
skittering · rank #93,158 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #93,158
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH skydome
Nearest frequency peer: skydome (+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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “skittering”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- signoria
signoria
6,847 corpus weight
- simpering
simpering
6,845 corpus weight
- skittering
skittering
6,843 corpus weight
- skydome
skydome
6,842 corpus weight
- slappy
slappy
6,841 corpus weight
- slee
slee
6,840 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “skittering” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | skittering |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #93,158 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “skittering” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
skittering is uncommon English at frequency #93,158 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act of one who skitters.".
No misspelling variants are generated for skittering in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is skittering, spelled S-K-I-T-T-E-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of one who skitters.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how skittering appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Sometimes he stopped and listened for sounds of pursuit, but there were none, only the skitterings of rats.
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 "skittering", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "skittering". Here's where to go from here.
- Usage frequency rank #93,158 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.