tailwind
/ˈteɪlwɪnd/
"tailwind" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tailwind” is uncommon English (frequency #66,333 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #66,333
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A wind that blows in the same direction as the course taken by an aircraft, sailing ship, bird, etc.; a following wind.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tailwind · tailwind · English
tailwind · rank #66,333 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #66,333
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH tailback
Nearest frequency peer: tailback (-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 “tailwind”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- séance
séance
33,673 corpus weight
- T9
T9
33,671 corpus weight
- tahini
tahini
33,670 corpus weight
- tailback
tailback
33,669 corpus weight
- tailwind
tailwind
33,668 corpus weight
- Takeuchi
Takeuchi
33,667 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tailwind” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tailwind |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈteɪlwɪnd/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #66,333 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tailwind” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tailwind is uncommon English at frequency #66,333 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈteɪlwɪnd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for tailwind in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. 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: From tail + wind. The correct English form is tailwind, spelled T-A-I-L-W-I-N-D.
Definition
- 1A wind that blows in the same direction as the course taken by an aircraft, sailing ship, bird, etc.; a following wind.
- 2A force that accelerates progress.
Etymology
From tail + wind.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tailwind", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).