tailings
"tailings" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tailings” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #42,443 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #42,443
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; the waste from coal mining.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tailings |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #42,443 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tailings” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tailings is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #42,443 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for tailings, with forms such as "atilings", "taiilngs", and "tailigns". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 6 confusable-pair relationships, "tiling", "tidings", "toiling", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is tailings, spelled T-A-I-L-I-N-G-S.
Definition
- 1The waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; the waste from coal mining.
- 2The weak feints, the last fraction of product obtained at the end of distillation, typically impure and containing fusel oils.
- 3Inferior or damaged grain, as well as seeds of other plants (weeds), removed from grain before milling or sowing.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: atilings,taiilngs,tailigns,tailinggs,tailingss,tailinngs,tailinsg,taillings,tailnigs,taliings,tialings,ttailings
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of tailings - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “tailings”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-I-L-I-N-G-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “tiling” - see the side-by-side comparison. tailings vs tiling
- 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.