townsman
"townsman" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“townsman” is an uncommon English word, ranked #96,586 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #96,586
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A man who is a resident of a town, especially of one's own town.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | townsman |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #96,586 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “townsman” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for townsman is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #96,586 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for townsman in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English townes-man, from Old English tūnmann, tūnes mann, equivalent to town + -s- + man. The correct English form is townsman, spelled T-O-W-N-S-M-A-N.
Definition
- 1A man who is a resident of a town, especially of one's own town.
- 2A resident of a university town, as opposed to a scholar at the university; a townie.
- 3Synonym of oppidan (“type of student”).
Etymology
From Middle English townes-man, from Old English tūnmann, tūnes mann, equivalent to town + -s- + man.
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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Using “townsman”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-O-W-N-S-M-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.