tardiness

noun

"tardiness" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“tardiness” is an uncommon English word, ranked #57,757 in English word frequency and used as a noun.

#57,757
frequency rank, English
9
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The state or quality of being tardy.

Key facts for tardiness
PropertyValue
Headwordtardiness
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Frequency rank#57,757
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “tardiness” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). tardiness lands here:

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for tardiness is 9 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #57,757 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Zero misspellings are on record for tardiness in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From tardy + -ness. The correct English form is tardiness, spelled T-A-R-D-I-N-E-S-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    The state or quality of being tardy.
  2. 2
    The result or product of being tardy.

Etymology

From tardy + -ness.

Synonyms

Antonyms

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

How do you spell "tardiness"?
"tardiness" is spelled T-A-R-D-I-N-E-S-S.
What does "tardiness" mean?
As a noun, "tardiness" means: The state or quality of being tardy.
What is the origin of the word "tardiness"?
From tardy + -ness. 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.

Using “tardiness”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is T-A-R-D-I-N-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list