winky
/ˈwɪŋki/
"winky" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“winky” is uncommon English (frequency #55,860 among 1,759 “W” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,860
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tending to wink; winking.
Corpus desk
Index EN-winky · winky · English
winky · rank #55,860 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,860
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH windowless
Nearest frequency peer: windowless (-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 “winky”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
44,144 corpus weight
- Willingham
Willingham
44,143 corpus weight
- windowless
windowless
44,142 corpus weight
- winky
winky
44,141 corpus weight
- Wishart
Wishart
44,140 corpus weight
- wolfman
wolfman
44,138 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “winky” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | winky |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈwɪŋki/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #55,860 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “winky” in English
Rare enough to double-check
winky is uncommon English at frequency #55,860 among 1,759 “W” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈwɪŋki/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Tending to wink; winking.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for winky, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From wink + -y. The correct English form is winky, spelled W-I-N-K-Y.
Definition
- 1Tending to wink; winking.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how winky appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
a winky smiley face
Dickens aficionados will delight in winky references to his novels, as well as to his biography: Jenny Wren of “Our Mutual Friend” lends a nickname to Miss Ricketts; Alfred’s brother’s name is Sydney (as in Carton); and the One and Only’s death has left a “Drood”-like novel unfinished, occasioning wild speculation about its conclusion.
Etymology
From wink + -y.
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 "winky", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).