tansy
/ˈtanzi/
"tansy" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tansy” is uncommon English (frequency #78,187 among 27,828 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #78,187
- frequency rank, English
- 27,828
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A herbaceous plant with yellow flowers, of the genus Tanacetum, especially Tanacetum vulgare.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tansy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtanzi/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #78,187 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tansy” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
tansy is uncommon English at frequency #78,187 among 27,828 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈtanzi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for tansy in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English tansy, tansey, syncopic forms of earlier tanesie, tanesei, from Old French tanesie, tanoisie, tanasie, tanaisie, from Medieval Latin tanacetum, atanacetum, attested since the 8th century, of obscure origin, speculated from Anci… The correct English form is tansy, spelled T-A-N-S-Y.
Definition
- 1A herbaceous plant with yellow flowers, of the genus Tanacetum, especially Tanacetum vulgare.
- 2A dish common in the seventeenth century, made of eggs, sugar, rose water, cream, and the juice of herbs (including tansy), baked with butter in a shallow dish. "Originally flavoured with tansy, but by Pepys's time generally having spinach as its predominant flavouring."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English tansy, tansey, syncopic forms of earlier tanesie, tanesei, from Old French tanesie, tanoisie, tanasie, tanaisie, from Medieval Latin tanacetum, atanacetum, attested since the 8th century, of obscure origin, speculated from Ancient Greek ἀθανασία (athanasía, “immortality”) owing to hallucinations from the thujone in the plant, else from taenia (“tapeworm”) due to its primary use against parasites by which reason it is called in Arabic حَشِيشَة الدُود (ḥašīša ad-dūd, literally “worm herb”), otherwise a Berber borrowing like tagetes.
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 “tansy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-N-S-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈtanzi/ (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.