add up

verb

"add-up" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

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

Unranked
below top-frequency English
6
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To take the sum of; to total.

Corpus desk

Index EN-add-up · add up · English

add up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 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.

Key facts for add up
PropertyValue
Headwordadd up
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters6
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “add up” in English

add upsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

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

Rare enough to double-check

add up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

add up has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is add up, spelled A-D-D- -U-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    To take the sum of; to total.
  2. 2
    To accumulate; to amount to.
  3. 3
    To make sense; to be reasonable or consistent.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Add up the prices and find out how much it will cost.
  2. When they added up the vaccine doses from all known and anticipate sources, they didn't have enough.

Synonyms

Antonyms

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "add up"?
"add up" is spelled A-D-D- -U-P.
What does "add up" mean?
As a verb, "add up" means: To take the sum of; to total.
What language does "add up" come from?
"add up" 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