wide receiver

noun

"wide-receiver" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“wide receiver” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An offensive football player whose position on the line of scrimmage is farthest from the ball and whose function is to principally to catch passes.

Corpus desk

Index EN-wide-receiver · wide receiver · English

wide receiver · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-6 6 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 wide receiver
PropertyValue
Headwordwide receiver
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “wide receiver” in English

wide receiverfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

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

Rare enough to double-check

wide receiver is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An offensive football player whose position on the line of scrimmage is farthest from the ball and whose function is to principally to catch passes.".

No misspelling variants are generated for wide receiver in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is wide receiver, spelled W-I-D-E- -R-E-C-E-I-V-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    An offensive football player whose position on the line of scrimmage is farthest from the ball and whose function is to principally to catch passes.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. All season, the Chiefs have struggled on offense, in particular in the pass catching department. On multiple occasions throughout the regular season, Mahomes was burned by mental miscues from his wide receivers which cost the Chiefs wins.

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 "wide receiver"?
"wide receiver" is spelled W-I-D-E- -R-E-C-E-I-V-E-R.
What does "wide receiver" mean?
As a noun, "wide receiver" means: An offensive football player whose position on the line of scrimmage is farthest from the ball and whose function is to principally to catch passes.
What language does "wide receiver" come from?
"wide receiver" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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