zombie
/ˈzɒmbi/
"zombie" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“zombie” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #7,876. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #7,876
- frequency rank, English
- 265
- “Z” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his or her own.
Corpus desk
Index EN-zombie · zombie · English
zombie · rank #7,876 · 8 variants · 1 confusable
- FREQ-COMMON #7,876
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 1 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-MID 265
- PHOTO-FINISH workforce
Nearest frequency peer: workforce (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “zombie”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- WiFi
WiFi
92,128 corpus weight
- wishing
wishing
92,127 corpus weight
- workforce
workforce
92,126 corpus weight
- zombie
zombie
92,125 corpus weight
- acre
acre
92,124 corpus weight
- airports
airports
92,123 corpus weight
What this shows “zombie” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | zombie |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈzɒmbi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,876 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “zombie”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around zombie (IPA /ˈzɒmbi/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #7,876 among 265 “Z” headwords. Wiktionary lists 11 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for zombie, with forms such as "ozmbie", "zmobie", and "zobmie". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "Zambia", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested in the 18th century. From a Bantu language. Compare Kongo nzambi (“god”), zumbi (“fetish”), and Kimbundu nzumbi (“ghost”) (see Portuguese zumbi, Sranan Tongo dyumbi), and Caribbean folklore's jumbee (“a spirit or demon”). May have come throug… The correct English form is zombie, spelled Z-O-M-B-I-E.
Definition
- 1A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his or her own.
- 2An apathetic or slow-witted person.
- 3A human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.
- 4Someone or something that should be dead but is not.
- 5An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.
- 6A process or task which has terminated but has not been removed from the list of processes, typically because it has an unresponsive parent process.
- 7A computer affected by malware which causes it to do whatever the attacker wants it to do without the user's knowledge.
- 8A cocktail of rum and fruit juices.
- 9A conscripted member of the Canadian military during World War II who was assigned to home defence rather than to combat in Europe.
- 10Marijuana, or similar drugs.
- 11A hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how zombie appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Betsy Connell: I don't know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie? / Dr. Maxwell: A ghost. A living dead. It's also a drink.
The zombies were having fun The party had just begun The guests included Wolf-Man, Dracula, and his son.
Etymology
First attested in the 18th century. From a Bantu language. Compare Kongo nzambi (“god”), zumbi (“fetish”), and Kimbundu nzumbi (“ghost”) (see Portuguese zumbi, Sranan Tongo dyumbi), and Caribbean folklore's jumbee (“a spirit or demon”). May have come through Louisiana Creole zombi (“zombie; ghost”). See also French zombi (“zombie”). A possible origin from Spanish sombra (“shadow, phantom”) has also been suggested.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ozmbie
- zmobie
- zobmie
- zombbie
- zombei
- zomibe
- zommbie
- zzombie
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of zombie - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "zombie", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).