attaboy
/ˈætəˌbɔɪ/
"attaboy" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“attaboy” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. 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) - Used to show encouragement or approval to a boy, man, or male animal.
Corpus desk
Index EN-attaboy · attaboy · English
attaboy · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 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 | attaboy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | /ˈætəˌbɔɪ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “attaboy” in English
Rare enough to double-check
attaboy is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection, transcribed /ˈætəˌbɔɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Used to show encouragement or approval to a boy, man, or male animal.".
Zero misspellings are on record for attaboy in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: A variant pronunciation of That's the boy!, a cry of encouragement, especially to children and pet dogs. The correct English form is attaboy, spelled A-T-T-A-B-O-Y.
Definition
- 1Used to show encouragement or approval to a boy, man, or male animal.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how attaboy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Attaboy! That's the way to hit a home run!
[Steve] Bannon responded: “They went for an hour instead of 30 minutes--- showing the entire hour over multiple platforms.” [Jeffrey] Epstein shot back “atta boy”.
Etymology
A variant pronunciation of That's the boy!, a cry of encouragement, especially to children and pet dogs.
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.