sneering
"sneering" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sneering” is uncommon English (frequency #50,239 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,239
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Contemptful, mocking.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sneering · sneering · English
sneering · rank #50,239 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,239
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH smithy
Nearest frequency peer: smithy (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “sneering”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- skinning
skinning
49,766 corpus weight
- smithy
smithy
49,763 corpus weight
- sneering
sneering
49,762 corpus weight
- snooty
snooty
49,761 corpus weight
- snotty
snotty
49,760 corpus weight
- songbook
songbook
49,759 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “sneering” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sneering |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #50,239 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sneering” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sneering is uncommon English at frequency #50,239 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Contemptful, mocking.".
Zero misspellings are on record for sneering in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is sneering, spelled S-N-E-E-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Contemptful, mocking.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how sneering appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He made a sneering comment about their closeness.
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 "sneering", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).