speciesism
/ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm/
"speciesism" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“speciesism” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An ethical stance that assigns different worth or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership, such as assigning greater rights to human beings than to other animals.
Corpus desk
Index EN-speciesism · speciesism · English
speciesism · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | speciesism |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “speciesism” in English
Rare enough to double-check
speciesism is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An ethical stance that assigns different worth or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership, such as assigning greater rights to human beings than to other animals.".
speciesism doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Coined by British animal rights advocate Richard D. Ryder in 1970 from species + -ism. The correct English form is speciesism, spelled S-P-E-C-I-E-S-I-S-M.
Definition
- 1An ethical stance that assigns different worth or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership, such as assigning greater rights to human beings than to other animals.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how speciesism appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote (most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees
This human chauvinism is one form of a general type of discrimination known as speciesism. What is speciesism? Think of racism. The term “speciesism” has been strategically used by animal rights activists from the 1970s onward precisely […]
Etymology
Coined by British animal rights advocate Richard D. Ryder in 1970 from species + -ism.
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.