tortious
/ˈtɔːʃəs/
"tortious" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tortious” is uncommon English (frequency #86,861 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,861
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Wrongful; harmful.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tortious · tortious · English
tortious · rank #86,861 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #86,861
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH tosa
Nearest frequency peer: tosa (+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 “tortious”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Tibbetts
Tibbetts
13,149 corpus weight
- ticky
ticky
13,148 corpus weight
- toiletry
toiletry
13,143 corpus weight
- tortious
tortious
13,140 corpus weight
- tosa
tosa
13,139 corpus weight
- tribble
tribble
13,130 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tortious” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tortious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈtɔːʃəs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #86,861 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tortious” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tortious is uncommon English at frequency #86,861 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈtɔːʃəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for tortious in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English torcious, from Anglo-Norman torcious. By surface analysis, tort + -ious. The correct English form is tortious, spelled T-O-R-T-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Wrongful; harmful.
- 2Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of torts.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tortious appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
he found great store of hoorded threasure, / The which that tyrant gathered had by wrong / And tortious powre […]
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English torcious, from Anglo-Norman torcious. By surface analysis, tort + -ious.
Synonyms
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 "tortious", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).