teleological
/tɛliːəˈlɒdʒɪk(ə)l/
"teleological" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“teleological” is uncommon English (frequency #80,953 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,953
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Of or pertaining to teleology; showing evidence of design or purpose.
Corpus desk
Index EN-teleological · teleological · English
teleological · rank #80,953 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,953
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH teabag
Nearest frequency peer: teabag (-3 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 “teleological”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Taichung
Taichung
19,057 corpus weight
- teabag
teabag
19,051 corpus weight
- teleological
teleological
19,048 corpus weight
- theologies
theologies
19,045 corpus weight
- tickler
tickler
19,041 corpus weight
- Tippecanoe
Tippecanoe
19,039 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “teleological” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | teleological |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /tɛliːəˈlɒdʒɪk(ə)l/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #80,953 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “teleological” in English
Rare enough to double-check
teleological is uncommon English at frequency #80,953 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /tɛliːəˈlɒdʒɪk(ə)l/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Of or pertaining to teleology; showing evidence of design or purpose.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for teleological, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From teleologic + -al. The correct English form is teleological, spelled T-E-L-E-O-L-O-G-I-C-A-L.
Definition
- 1Of or pertaining to teleology; showing evidence of design or purpose.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how teleological appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
It will be seen that this doctrine is optimistic and teleological: the universe and everything in it is developing towards something continually better than what went before.
Do I believe in God? I'm what you would call a teleological, existential atheist. I believe that there's an intelligence to the universe, with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey.
Etymology
From teleologic + -al.
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 "teleological", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).