white-haired

adj

"white-haired" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“white-haired” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
12
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having white hair; especially, of a person, from old age.

Corpus desk

Index EN-white-haired · white-haired · English

white-haired · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "W" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for white-haired
PropertyValue
Headwordwhite-haired
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “white-haired” in English

white-hairedranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

white-haired is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having white hair; especially, of a person, from old age.".

No misspelling variants are generated for white-haired in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English white-heered, white-harid, white-herede, whyte-harede, white hared, equivalent to white + haired. Compare Old Norse hvít-hárr and hvít-hærðr (“white-haired”). The correct English form is white-haired, spelled W-H-I-T-E---H-A-I-R-E-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    Having white hair; especially, of a person, from old age.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how white-haired appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. The white-haired king took the tidings with calm, believing that he must have in some fashion broken a law without knowing.

Etymology

From Middle English white-heered, white-harid, white-herede, whyte-harede, white hared, equivalent to white + haired. Compare Old Norse hvít-hárr and hvít-hærðr (“white-haired”).

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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "white-haired"?
"white-haired" is spelled W-H-I-T-E---H-A-I-R-E-D.
What does "white-haired" mean?
As an adjective, "white-haired" means: Having white hair; especially, of a person, from old age.
What is the origin of the word "white-haired"?
From Middle English white-heered, white-harid, white-herede, whyte-harede, white hared, equivalent to white + haired. Compare Old Norse hvít-hárr and hvít-hærðr (“white-haired”). See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list