slow-witted
"slow-witted" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“slow-witted” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lacking a keen or swift intellect, not too bright or not too swift.
Corpus desk
Index EN-slow-witted · slow-witted · English
slow-witted · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | slow-witted |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “slow-witted” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
slow-witted is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Lacking a keen or swift intellect, not too bright or not too swift.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for slow-witted, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is slow-witted, spelled S-L-O-W---W-I-T-T-E-D.
Definition
- 1Lacking a keen or swift intellect, not too bright or not too swift.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how slow-witted appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The ape-man was all attention in an instant. He asked questions as rapidly as the slow-witted anthropoid could answer them.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
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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.