talcum
/ˈtælkəm/
"talcum" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“talcum” is uncommon English (frequency #67,095 among 27,828 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #67,095
- frequency rank, English
- 27,828
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Powdered and perfumed talc for toilet use.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | talcum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtælkəm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #67,095 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “talcum” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
talcum is uncommon English at frequency #67,095 among 27,828 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈtælkəm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Powdered and perfumed talc for toilet use.".
talcum has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. 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 talc + -um, from Medieval Latin talcum, from Arabic طَلْق (ṭalq). The correct English form is talcum, spelled T-A-L-C-U-M.
Definition
- 1Powdered and perfumed talc for toilet use.
Etymology
From talc + -um, from Medieval Latin talcum, from Arabic طَلْق (ṭalq).
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.
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Using “talcum”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-L-C-U-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈtælkəm/ (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.