umpteen
/ˈʌmp.tiːn/
"umpteen" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“umpteen” is an uncommon English word, ranked #80,994 in English word frequency and used as a determiner.
- #80,994
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Relatively large but unspecified in number.
| 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) |
Where “umpteen” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for umpteen is 7 letters long, classified as a determiner, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʌmp.tiːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #80,994 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "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.
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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Using “umpteen”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is U-M-P-T-E-E-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈʌmp.tiːn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.