tottering
"tottering" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tottering” is uncommon English (frequency #78,217 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #78,217
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The movement of one who totters.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tottering · tottering · English
tottering · rank #78,217 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #78,217
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH totemic
Nearest frequency peer: totemic (-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 “tottering”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Tomei
Tomei
21,787 corpus weight
- tortellini
tortellini
21,786 corpus weight
- totemic
totemic
21,785 corpus weight
- tottering
tottering
21,784 corpus weight
- tracheotomy
tracheotomy
21,783 corpus weight
- transfection
transfection
21,781 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tottering” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tottering |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #78,217 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tottering” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
tottering is uncommon English at frequency #78,217 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The movement of one who totters.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for tottering, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is tottering, spelled T-O-T-T-E-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The movement of one who totters.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tottering appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Its faint descent tried the powers of the horse to keep back the car, and so feeble were his totterings that I began to fear we should miss the train[…]
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 "tottering", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).