tamale
/təˈmɑː.liː/
"tamale" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tamale” is an uncommon English word, ranked #54,522 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #54,522
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A Mexican dish of cornmeal dough shell filled with various ingredients (e.g. chopped beef, pork, sweet filling) then steamed in corn husks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tamale |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /təˈmɑː.liː/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #54,522 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tamale” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tamale is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /təˈmɑː.liː/. Corpus data places it at rank #54,522 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A Mexican dish of cornmeal dough shell filled with various ingredients (e.g. chopped beef, pork, sweet filling) then steamed in corn husks.".
tamale doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Back-formation from the plural tamales, derived from Latin American Spanish tamales, plural of tamal, derived from Nahuatl tamalli (“wrapped”), derived from Proto-Uto-Aztecan *tïmaL-. Compare O'odham cemait (“tortilla”), Hopi tuma (“stone griddle for cookin… The correct English form is tamale, spelled T-A-M-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1A Mexican dish of cornmeal dough shell filled with various ingredients (e.g. chopped beef, pork, sweet filling) then steamed in corn husks.
Etymology
Back-formation from the plural tamales, derived from Latin American Spanish tamales, plural of tamal, derived from Nahuatl tamalli (“wrapped”), derived from Proto-Uto-Aztecan *tïmaL-. Compare O'odham cemait (“tortilla”), Hopi tuma (“stone griddle for cooking corn flatbread”), Ute tʉ'ma- (“to roast under ashes”).
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 “tamale”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-M-A-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /təˈmɑː.liː/ (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
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.