whitten
"whitten" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whitten” is uncommon English (frequency #50,319 among 1,759 “W” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,319
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of several small trees having leaves that are white and downy underneath.
Corpus desk
Index EN-whitten · whitten · English
whitten · rank #50,319 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,319
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH Wicklow
Nearest frequency peer: Wicklow (+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 “whitten”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- votive
votive
49,688 corpus weight
- wetsuit
wetsuit
49,684 corpus weight
- whitten
whitten
49,682 corpus weight
- Wicklow
Wicklow
49,681 corpus weight
- wilding
wilding
49,680 corpus weight
- Wolcott
Wolcott
49,678 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “whitten” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | whitten |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #50,319 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “whitten” in English
Rare enough to double-check
whitten is uncommon English at frequency #50,319 among 1,759 “W” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any of several small trees having leaves that are white and downy underneath.".
No misspelling variants are generated for whitten in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: English, used in mid-16th century; variant of whiting. The correct English form is whitten, spelled W-H-I-T-T-E-N.
Definition
- 1Any of several small trees having leaves that are white and downy underneath.
Etymology
English, used in mid-16th century; variant of whiting.
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 "whitten", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).