speight
/speɪt/
"speight" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“speight” is uncommon English (frequency #56,461 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,461
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A woodpecker.
Corpus desk
Index EN-speight · speight · English
speight · rank #56,461 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,461
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH specious
Nearest frequency peer: specious (-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 “speight”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- soothed
soothed
43,544 corpus weight
- soylent
soylent
43,543 corpus weight
- spats
spats
43,542 corpus weight
- specious
specious
43,541 corpus weight
- speight
speight
43,540 corpus weight
- Staggers
Staggers
43,537 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “speight” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | speight |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /speɪt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #56,461 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “speight” in English
Rare enough to double-check
speight is uncommon English at frequency #56,461 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /speɪt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A woodpecker.".
speight doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From late Northern Middle English specht (“woodpecker”), from Old English *spiht, *speoht, from Proto-West Germanic *spiht, *speht, from Proto-Germanic *spihtaz, *spehtaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peyk- (“a kind of bird, woodpecker, magpie”). Traditiona… The correct English form is speight, spelled S-P-E-I-G-H-T.
Definition
- 1A woodpecker.
Etymology
From late Northern Middle English specht (“woodpecker”), from Old English *spiht, *speoht, from Proto-West Germanic *spiht, *speht, from Proto-Germanic *spihtaz, *spehtaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peyk- (“a kind of bird, woodpecker, magpie”). Traditionally considered to be borrowed from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, but this is rendered problematic by the mention of Spehtesberie in Domesday (Middle English Speghtesbury, Spettesbury; modern Spettisbury). Compare Dutch specht (“woodpecker”), German Specht (“woodpecker”), Danish spætte (“woodpecker”), Latin pīcus (“woodpecker”).
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 "speight", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).