tufa
"tufa" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tufa” is uncommon English (frequency #87,929 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #87,929
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Calcareous lime deposited by precipitation from a body of water, such as a hot spring.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tufa · tufa · English
tufa · rank #87,929 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #87,929
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH tubule
Nearest frequency peer: tubule (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “tufa”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Truax
Truax
12,075 corpus weight
- tubule
tubule
12,073 corpus weight
- tufa
tufa
12,072 corpus weight
- tup
tup
12,071 corpus weight
- tweeds
tweeds
12,070 corpus weight
- typists
typists
12,069 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “tufa” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tufa |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #87,929 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tufa” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
tufa is uncommon English at frequency #87,929 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
tufa has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Italian tufo, from Latin tōfus or tōphus. Doublet of tuff. The correct English form is tufa, spelled T-U-F-A.
Definition
- 1Calcareous lime deposited by precipitation from a body of water, such as a hot spring.
- 2A variety of volcanic rock, tuff.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tufa appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
B.J. Szabo presented the results of a survey of the tufa mounds that border Pyramid Lake indicating that uranium-series methods can be used to approximate the ages of such tufa deposits. In the Pyramid Lake Basin, tufas less than 50,000 years old contain large quantities of excess thorium, and the error in age estimates made using uranium-series methods i…
Resedimented tufas also contribute where erosion has washed detritus from other hillside tufa deposits.
Etymology
From Italian tufo, from Latin tōfus or tōphus. Doublet of tuff.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tufa", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
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- Usage frequency rank #87,929 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
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PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.