tephra
/ˈtɛ.fɹə/
"tephra" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tephra” is uncommon English (frequency #97,621 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #97,621
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The solid material thrown into the air by a volcanic eruption that settles on the surrounding areas.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tephra · tephra · English
tephra · rank #97,621 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #97,621
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 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 “tephra”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- 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
- Tiong
Tiong
2,371 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tephra” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tephra |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtɛ.fɹə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #97,621 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tephra” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tephra is uncommon English at frequency #97,621 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈtɛ.fɹə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The solid material thrown into the air by a volcanic eruption that settles on the surrounding areas.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for tephra, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the Ancient Greek τέφρα (téphra, “ash”). The correct English form is tephra, spelled T-E-P-H-R-A.
Definition
- 1The solid material thrown into the air by a volcanic eruption that settles on the surrounding areas.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tephra appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The sky would have darkened with sheer volume of ash, the grapes would have withered upon the vine; misfortune would have fallen with the inexorability of volcanic tephra upon rich and poor alike.
Over a five-year research period, RESET is correlating tephras from their volcanic sources to where they fell in deep ocean and lake sediments, and even further into important archaeological sites in Europe, western Asia and North Africa.
Etymology
From the Ancient Greek τέφρα (téphra, “ash”).
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 "tephra", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).