skittle
/ˈskɪtəl/
"skittle" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skittle” is uncommon English (frequency #89,912 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,912
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - One of the wooden targets used in skittles.
Corpus desk
Index EN-skittle · skittle · English
skittle · rank #89,912 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #89,912
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH sixer
Nearest frequency peer: sixer (-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 “skittle”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Shoshana
Shoshana
10,098 corpus weight
- signee
signee
10,094 corpus weight
- sixer
sixer
10,092 corpus weight
- skittle
skittle
10,089 corpus weight
- smiting
smiting
10,085 corpus weight
- Sneddon
Sneddon
10,082 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “skittle” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | skittle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈskɪtəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #89,912 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “skittle” in English
Rare enough to double-check
skittle is uncommon English at frequency #89,912 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈskɪtəl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "One of the wooden targets used in skittles.".
skittle has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Origin unknown. Perhaps of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse skutill (“bolt, harpoon”), related to skjóta (“to shoot”), but the OED dismisses this connection as conjecture. The Old Norse word is related to Swedish and Danish skyttel (“shuttle, child's t… The correct English form is skittle, spelled S-K-I-T-T-L-E.
Definition
- 1One of the wooden targets used in skittles.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how skittle appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
By the afternoon it seemed as if the storm had passed and that frost was setting in; but in the evening the wind rose to gale force, bringing telegraph poles down like skittles and tangling power and telephone lines.
Etymology
Origin unknown. Perhaps of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse skutill (“bolt, harpoon”), related to skjóta (“to shoot”), but the OED dismisses this connection as conjecture. The Old Norse word is related to Swedish and Danish skyttel (“shuttle, child's toy”). Compare also Old English sċytel (“a dart, bolt”). More at shuttle.
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 "skittle", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).