spline
/splaɪn/
"spline" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“spline” is uncommon English (frequency #55,761 among 54,294 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,761
- frequency rank, English
- 54,294
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A long, thin piece of metal or wood.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spline |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /splaɪn/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #55,761 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “spline” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
spline is uncommon English at frequency #55,761 among 54,294 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /splaɪn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 6 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for spline, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Mid-1700s East Anglian dialect. Origin uncertain but perhaps from Old Danish splind or North Frisian splinj and ultimately related to the root of splinter. The correct English form is spline, spelled S-P-L-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1A long, thin piece of metal or wood.
- 2A strip of wood or other material inserted into grooves in each of two pieces of wood to provide additional surface for gluing.
- 3A flexible strip of metal or other material, that may be bent into a curve and used in a similar manner to a ruler to draw smooth curves between points.
- 4Any of a number of smooth curves used to join points.
- 5A ridge or tooth on a drive shaft that meshes with a corresponding groove in a mating piece and transfers torque to it, maintaining the angular correspondence between the pieces; either the ridge or the groove, as part of a set of both (splines); the whole set of ridges and grooves.
- 6A rectangular piece that fits grooves like key seats in a hub and a shaft, so that while the one may slide endwise on the other, both must revolve together.
Etymology
Mid-1700s East Anglian dialect. Origin uncertain but perhaps from Old Danish splind or North Frisian splinj and ultimately related to the root of splinter.
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); 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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Using “spline”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-L-I-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /splaɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.