terrorise
"terrorise" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“terrorise” is uncommon English (frequency #82,849 among 27,828 “T” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #82,849
- frequency rank, English
- 27,828
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of terrorize.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | terrorise |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #82,849 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “terrorise” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
terrorise is uncommon English at frequency #82,849 among 27,828 “T” headwords, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of terrorize.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for terrorise, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From terror + -ise. The correct English form is terrorise, spelled T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-E.
Definition
- 1Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of terrorize.
Etymology
From terror + -ise.
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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Using “terrorise”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.