unwisely
"unwisely" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“unwisely” is uncommon English (frequency #60,545 among 23,789 “U” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,545
- frequency rank, English
- 23,789
- “U” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - In an unwise manner; foolishly.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | unwisely |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #60,545 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “unwisely” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
unwisely is uncommon English at frequency #60,545 among 23,789 “U” headwords, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In an unwise manner; foolishly.".
unwisely has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English vnwysely, vnwisely, vnwyseliche, from Old English unwīslīċe (“unwisely, foolish”), equivalent to un- + wisely. The correct English form is unwisely, spelled U-N-W-I-S-E-L-Y.
Definition
- 1In an unwise manner; foolishly.
Etymology
From Middle English vnwysely, vnwisely, vnwyseliche, from Old English unwīslīċe (“unwisely, foolish”), equivalent to un- + wisely.
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 “unwisely”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is U-N-W-I-S-E-L-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.