working hypothesis

noun

"working-hypothesis" is a 17-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

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

Unranked
below top-frequency English
18
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A hypothesis that is weakly held, tentatively, as a best guess; such a hypothesis among several plausible ones that is driving or underpinning a scientific team's work at a given time.

Corpus desk

Index EN-working-hypothesis · working hypothesis · English

working hypothesis · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 18 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 working hypothesis
PropertyValue
Headwordworking hypothesis
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters18
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “working hypothesis” in English

working hypothesisfalls 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

working hypothesis is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A hypothesis that is weakly held, tentatively, as a best guess; such a hypothesis among several plausible ones that is driving or underpinning a scientific team's work at a given time.".

No misspelling variants are generated for working hypothesis in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is working hypothesis, spelled W-O-R-K-I-N-G- -H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-S-I-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    A hypothesis that is weakly held, tentatively, as a best guess; such a hypothesis among several plausible ones that is driving or underpinning a scientific team's work at a given time.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Among these several hypotheses, the one judged as most likely was our working hypothesis during the autumn semester.
  2. We do not know that this is the case, but it is an hypothesis which cannot be refuted and is simpler than any other possible hypothesis. I shall therefore adopt it as a working hypothesis in what follows.

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 "working hypothesis"?
"working hypothesis" is spelled W-O-R-K-I-N-G- -H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-S-I-S.
What does "working hypothesis" mean?
As a noun, "working hypothesis" means: A hypothesis that is weakly held, tentatively, as a best guess; such a hypothesis among several plausible ones that is driving or underpinning a scientific team's work at a given time.
What language does "working hypothesis" come from?
"working hypothesis" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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