whitten
"whitten" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whitten” is uncommon English (frequency #50,319 among 12,113 “W” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,319
- frequency rank, English
- 12,113
- “W” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of several small trees having leaves that are white and downy underneath.
| 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) |
Where “whitten” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
whitten is uncommon English at frequency #50,319 among 12,113 “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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Using “whitten”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-H-I-T-T-E-N - 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.