tendentious
/tɛnˈdɛnʃəs/
"tendentious" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tendentious” is uncommon English (frequency #97,619 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #97,619
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having a tendency, written or spoken, with a partisan, biased or prejudiced purpose, especially a controversial one; implicitly or explicitly slanted; biased.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tendentious · tendentious · English
tendentious · rank #97,619 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #97,619
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH Tenochtitlan
Nearest frequency peer: Tenochtitlan (+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 “tendentious”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- sylph
sylph
2,390 corpus weight
- Tarim
Tarim
2,387 corpus weight
- taxpaying
taxpaying
2,385 corpus weight
- tendentious
tendentious
2,382 corpus weight
- Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan
2,381 corpus weight
- tephra
tephra
2,380 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tendentious” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tendentious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /tɛnˈdɛnʃəs/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #97,619 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tendentious” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tendentious is uncommon English at frequency #97,619 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /tɛnˈdɛnʃəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having a tendency, written or spoken, with a partisan, biased or prejudiced purpose, especially a controversial one; implicitly or explicitly slanted; biased.".
Zero misspellings are on record for tendentious in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From tendency + -ious, after German tendenziös. The correct English form is tendentious, spelled T-E-N-D-E-N-T-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Having a tendency, written or spoken, with a partisan, biased or prejudiced purpose, especially a controversial one; implicitly or explicitly slanted; biased.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tendentious appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonyms: partisan, slanted, partial, prejudiced
That he was a supporter of the cause was clear, because his reports from the front were tendentious.
Etymology
From tendency + -ious, after German tendenziös.
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 "tendentious", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).