tokenism
"tokenism" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tokenism” is uncommon English (frequency #88,932 among 27,828 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #88,932
- frequency rank, English
- 27,828
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A policy of formally complying with efforts to achieve a goal by making small, token gestures; especially to hire a minimal number of ethnically diverse or disadvantaged people.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tokenism |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #88,932 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tokenism” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
tokenism is uncommon English at frequency #88,932 among 27,828 “T” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A policy of formally complying with efforts to achieve a goal by making small, token gestures; especially to hire a minimal number of ethnically diverse or disadvantaged people.".
No misspelling variants are generated for tokenism in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From token + -ism. The correct English form is tokenism, spelled T-O-K-E-N-I-S-M.
Definition
- 1A policy of formally complying with efforts to achieve a goal by making small, token gestures; especially to hire a minimal number of ethnically diverse or disadvantaged people.
Etymology
From token + -ism.
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 “tokenism”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-O-K-E-N-I-S-M - 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.