all but
"all-but" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“all but” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Very nearly; everything short of. Most often precedes a verb or adjective.
Corpus desk
Index EN-all-but · all but · English
all but · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | all but |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “all but” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
all but is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for all but in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
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 all but, spelled A-L-L- -B-U-T.
Definition
- 1Very nearly; everything short of. Most often precedes a verb or adjective.
- 2Everything except. Typically precedes a noun or noun phrase.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how all but appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The food is all but finished.
A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. [...] Now the Jedi are all but extinct.
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
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Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.