whist
/ˈwɪst/
"whist" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whist” is uncommon English (frequency #59,812 among 1,759 “W” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,812
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of several four-player card games, similar to bridge.
Corpus desk
Index EN-whist · whist · English
whist · rank #59,812 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #59,812
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH wheeze
Nearest frequency peer: wheeze (-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 “whist”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- weekender
weekender
40,195 corpus weight
- weeklong
weeklong
40,194 corpus weight
- Whaley
Whaley
40,191 corpus weight
- wheeze
wheeze
40,190 corpus weight
- whist
whist
40,189 corpus weight
- woozy
woozy
40,185 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “whist” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | whist |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɪst/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #59,812 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “whist” in English
Rare enough to double-check
whist is uncommon English at frequency #59,812 among 1,759 “W” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈwɪst/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
whist has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Alteration of whisk, perhaps so called from the notion of “whisking” up cards after each trick. Altered perhaps on assumption that the word was an interjection invoking silence, by influence of whist (“silent”). The correct English form is whist, spelled W-H-I-S-T.
Definition
- 1Any of several four-player card games, similar to bridge.
- 2A session of playing this card game.
Etymology
Alteration of whisk, perhaps so called from the notion of “whisking” up cards after each trick. Altered perhaps on assumption that the word was an interjection invoking silence, by influence of whist (“silent”).
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 "whist", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).