waylaid
/ˌweɪˈleɪd/
"waylaid" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“waylaid” is uncommon English (frequency #77,333 among 1,759 “W” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,333
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - simple past and past participle of waylay
Corpus desk
Index EN-waylaid · waylaid · English
waylaid · rank #77,333 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #77,333
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH waterless
Nearest frequency peer: waterless (-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 “waylaid”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- virion
virion
22,676 corpus weight
- waterless
waterless
22,669 corpus weight
- waylaid
waylaid
22,668 corpus weight
- weal
weal
22,667 corpus weight
- Wedderburn
Wedderburn
22,664 corpus weight
- Weidenfeld
Weidenfeld
22,662 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “waylaid” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | waylaid |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˌweɪˈleɪd/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #77,333 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “waylaid” in English
Rare enough to double-check
waylaid is uncommon English at frequency #77,333 among 1,759 “W” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /ˌweɪˈleɪd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "simple past and past participle of waylay".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for waylaid, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is waylaid, spelled W-A-Y-L-A-I-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of waylay
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how waylaid appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already 'waylaid – yourself and I will not be there. And when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them – cut this head off from my shoulders.
My beloved reader has no doubt in the course of his experience been waylaid by many such a luckless companion
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 "waylaid", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).