teleology
/ˌtiː.liˈɒ.lə.dʒi/
"teleology" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“teleology” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The study of the purpose or design of natural occurrences.
Corpus desk
Index EN-teleology · teleology · English
teleology · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | teleology |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌtiː.liˈɒ.lə.dʒi/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “teleology” in English
Rare enough to double-check
teleology is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˌtiː.liˈɒ.lə.dʒi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
teleology has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek τέλος (télos, “purpose”), genitive τέλεος (téleos), and λόγος (lógos, “word, speech, discourse”). The correct English form is teleology, spelled T-E-L-E-O-L-O-G-Y.
Definition
- 1The study of the purpose or design of natural occurrences.
- 2An instance of such a design or purpose, usually in natural phenomena.
- 3The use of a purpose or design rather than the laws of nature to explain an occurrence.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how teleology appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The received intellectual tradition has it that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, revolutionary philosophers began to curtail and reject the teleology of the medieval and scholastic Aristotelians, abandoning final causes in favor of a purely mechanistic model of the Universe.
In short, what every student of biology knows – that within nature there is a teleology having to do with the survival of the species which underpins the distinction between the two sexes and produces between them a natural affinity for one another – no surgeon who knows what is good for him may now say.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek τέλος (télos, “purpose”), genitive τέλεος (téleos), and λόγος (lógos, “word, speech, discourse”).
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.