abide by
"abide-by" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“abide by” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To accept (a decision or law) and act in accordance with it; to conform to (a decision or law); to acquiesce to (a decision or law).
Corpus desk
Index EN-abide-by · abide by · English
abide by · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | abide by |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “abide by” in English
Rare enough to double-check
abide by is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for abide by, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is abide by, spelled A-B-I-D-E- -B-Y.
Definition
- 1To accept (a decision or law) and act in accordance with it; to conform to (a decision or law); to acquiesce to (a decision or law).
- 2To remain faithful to (something or someone); to adhere to (an idea or plan).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how abide by appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I don't agree with it, but I'll abide by the decision to give the reward to her.
The defendent has abided by my ruling in good faith.
This word in other languages
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.