all of a sudden
/ˌɔl əv ə ˈsʌdən/
"all-of-a-sudden" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“all of a sudden” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Suddenly, quickly, without warning.
Corpus desk
Index EN-all-of-a-sudden · all of a sudden · English
all of a sudden · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 of a sudden |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /ˌɔl əv ə ˈsʌdən/ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “all of a sudden” in English
Rare enough to double-check
all of a sudden is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed /ˌɔl əv ə ˈsʌdən/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Suddenly, quickly, without warning.".
all of a sudden has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is all of a sudden, spelled A-L-L- -O-F- -A- -S-U-D-D-E-N.
Definition
- 1Suddenly, quickly, without warning.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how all of a sudden appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
All of a sudden I felt very hot and tired.
― Enju: “Wh-What?! What are you saying all of a sudden?! Idiot! Hentai!”
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.