tengu
"tengu" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tengu” is uncommon English (frequency #76,392 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #76,392
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A mythical Japanese creature, typically birdlike and having a long nose.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tengu · tengu · English
tengu · rank #76,392 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #76,392
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH tenaciously
Nearest frequency peer: tenaciously (-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 “tengu”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Tejada
Tejada
23,613 corpus weight
- tenaciously
tenaciously
23,610 corpus weight
- tengu
tengu
23,609 corpus weight
- tenon
tenon
23,608 corpus weight
- Tewksbury
Tewksbury
23,607 corpus weight
- thame
thame
23,605 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tengu” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tengu |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #76,392 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tengu” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tengu is uncommon English at frequency #76,392 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A mythical Japanese creature, typically birdlike and having a long nose.".
Zero misspellings are on record for tengu in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Japanese 天狗. The correct English form is tengu, spelled T-E-N-G-U.
Definition
- 1A mythical Japanese creature, typically birdlike and having a long nose.
Etymology
Borrowed from Japanese 天狗.
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 "tengu"?
What does "tengu" mean?
What is the origin of the word "tengu"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tengu", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).