badmouth
/ˈbæd.maʊθ/
"badmouth" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“badmouth” is an uncommon English word, ranked #88,089 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #88,089
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To criticize or malign, especially unfairly or spitefully.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | badmouth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈbæd.maʊθ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #88,089 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “badmouth” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for badmouth is 8 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbæd.maʊθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #88,089 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To criticize or malign, especially unfairly or spitefully.".
No misspelling variants are generated for badmouth in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Calque of a Mande term, perhaps Vai [Term?] or Mandinka [Term?], which entered English via Gullah [Term?]. Compare Japanese 悪口(わるぐち) (waruguchi, “badmouthing”), which is a compound of 悪(わる) (waru, “bad, wicked”) and 口(くち) (kuchi, “mouth”). The correct English form is badmouth, spelled B-A-D-M-O-U-T-H.
Definition
- 1To criticize or malign, especially unfairly or spitefully.
Etymology
Calque of a Mande term, perhaps Vai [Term?] or Mandinka [Term?], which entered English via Gullah [Term?]. Compare Japanese 悪口(わるぐち) (waruguchi, “badmouthing”), which is a compound of 悪(わる) (waru, “bad, wicked”) and 口(くち) (kuchi, “mouth”).
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “badmouth”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-A-D-M-O-U-T-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbæd.maʊθ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.