sorrowfulness
"sorrowfulness" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sorrowfulness” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The quality or state of sorrow; sadness.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sorrowfulness |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sorrowfulness” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sorrowfulness is 13 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The quality or state of sorrow; sadness.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sorrowfulness, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English sorwefulnesse; by surface analysis, sorrowful + ness. The correct English form is sorrowfulness, spelled S-O-R-R-O-W-F-U-L-N-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1The quality or state of sorrow; sadness.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English sorwefulnesse; by surface analysis, sorrowful + ness.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “sorrowfulness”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-O-R-R-O-W-F-U-L-N-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.