an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
"an-eye-for-an-eye-a-tooth-for-a-tooth" is a 28-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a proverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 38
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - compensation for injury caused by a person, in the form of inflicting of an identical injury on that person.
Corpus desk
Index EN-an-eye-for-an-eye-a-toot · an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth · English
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 38 letters
- VOW-16 16 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 | an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proverb |
| Letters | 38 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” in English
Rare enough to double-check
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aproverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "compensation for injury caused by a person, in the form of inflicting of an identical injury on that person.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Reference to Exodus 21:23-25: "And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe". (King James Version) The correct English form is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, spelled A-N- -E-Y-E- -F-O-R- -A-N- -E-Y-E-,- -A- -T-O-O-T-H- -F-O-R- -A- -T-O-O-T-H.
Definition
- 1compensation for injury caused by a person, in the form of inflicting of an identical injury on that person.
Etymology
Reference to Exodus 21:23-25: "And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe". (King James Version)
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.