tappan

noun

"tappan" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“tappan” is uncommon English (frequency #50,831 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#50,831
frequency rank, English
3,151
“T” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An emergent tropical rainforest tree, Koompassia excelsa, family Fabaceae, of Southeast Asia.

Corpus desk

Index EN-tappan · tappan · English

tappan · rank #50,831 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #50,831
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,151
  • PHOTO-FINISH Talley

Nearest frequency peer: Talley (-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 “tappan”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “tappan” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for tappan
PropertyValue
Headwordtappan
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters6
Frequency rank#50,831
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “tappan” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).tappanfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “Talley” (#50,830), “taupe” (#50,832), “systemically” (#50,828). Among 3,151 “T” headwords, “tappan” is #50,831. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

tappan is uncommon English at frequency #50,831 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An emergent tropical rainforest tree, Koompassia excelsa, family Fabaceae, of Southeast Asia.".

Zero misspellings are on record for tappan in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Malay tapang. The correct English form is tappan, spelled T-A-P-P-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    An emergent tropical rainforest tree, Koompassia excelsa, family Fabaceae, of Southeast Asia.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how tappan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. The honey-bee of Borneo very generally hangs its combs under the branches of the Tappan, a tree which towers above all others in the forest, and whose smooth cylindrical trunk often rises a hundred feet without a branch.
  2. Two minutes more, and the top-knot of the lofty tappan before the house was thrashing the reeds out of the thatch—there was a shriek as of a thousand buzz-saws—a fusillade of branches and pebbles—and the squall had gone yelling away into the east.

Etymology

From Malay tapang.

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

How do you spell "tappan"?
"tappan" is spelled T-A-P-P-A-N.
What does "tappan" mean?
As a noun, "tappan" means: An emergent tropical rainforest tree, Koompassia excelsa, family Fabaceae, of Southeast Asia.
What is the origin of the word "tappan"?
From Malay tapang. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tappan", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list