umpteen
/ˈʌmp.tiːn/
"umpteen" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“umpteen” is uncommon English (frequency #80,994 among 1,433 “U” headwords), classed as a determiner. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,994
- frequency rank, English
- 1,433
- “U” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Relatively large but unspecified in number.
Corpus desk
Index EN-umpteen · umpteen · English
umpteen · rank #80,994 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,994
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,433
- PHOTO-FINISH UNCTAD
Nearest frequency peer: UNCTAD (+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 “umpteen”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Umayyad
Umayyad
19,009 corpus weight
- umpteen
umpteen
19,007 corpus weight
- UNCTAD
UNCTAD
19,006 corpus weight
- unfree
unfree
19,005 corpus weight
- unfurnished
unfurnished
19,004 corpus weight
- unluckiest
unluckiest
19,003 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “umpteen” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | umpteen |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Determiner |
| IPA | /ˈʌmp.tiːn/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #80,994 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “umpteen” in English
Rare enough to double-check
umpteen is uncommon English at frequency #80,994 among 1,433 “U” headwords, classed as adeterminer, transcribed /ˈʌmp.tiːn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Relatively large but unspecified in number.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for umpteen, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From ump (“a colloquial name for the dash "—" in Morse code”) + -teen. Unrelated to ump as in umpire, and simply a mnemonic rhyming aid. The correct English form is umpteen, spelled U-M-P-T-E-E-N.
Definition
- 1Relatively large but unspecified in number.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how umpteen appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
She's taking umpteen friends with her to the party.
We still claim a population of over 300,000 based on the new city directory, and that chief of the census who threw out umpteen thousand names on us this spring can’t put his name on our slipboard any more.
Etymology
From ump (“a colloquial name for the dash "—" in Morse code”) + -teen. Unrelated to ump as in umpire, and simply a mnemonic rhyming aid.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "umpteen", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).