tedium
/ˈtiː.di.əm/
"tedium" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tedium” is uncommon English (frequency #50,268 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,268
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Boredom or tediousness; ennui.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tedium · tedium · English
tedium · rank #50,268 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,268
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH Theodora
Nearest frequency peer: Theodora (+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 “tedium”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- tali
tali
49,736 corpus weight
- Talladega
Talladega
49,735 corpus weight
- tedium
tedium
49,733 corpus weight
- Theodora
Theodora
49,732 corpus weight
- thoughtfuln…
thoughtfulness
49,731 corpus weight
- thousandth
thousandth
49,730 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tedium” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tedium |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtiː.di.əm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #50,268 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tedium” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tedium is uncommon English at frequency #50,268 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈtiː.di.əm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Boredom or tediousness; ennui.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for tedium in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin taedium, from taedēre (“to weary”). The correct English form is tedium, spelled T-E-D-I-U-M.
Definition
- 1Boredom or tediousness; ennui.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tedium appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Yet active life was the genuine soil for his virtues; and he sometimes suffered tedium from the monotonous succession of events in our retirement.
Nothing actual ever suits pure expectation and such purity of expectation is a great source of tedium.
Etymology
From Latin taedium, from taedēre (“to weary”).
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tedium", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).