breakbone fever

noun

"breakbone-fever" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“breakbone fever” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
15
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - dengue fever.

Key facts for breakbone fever
PropertyValue
Headwordbreakbone fever
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters15
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “breakbone fever” sits in English frequency

breakbone fever falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for breakbone fever is 15 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "dengue fever.".

breakbone fever doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

Etymologically, the entry records: Coinage attributed to Benjamin Rush because of the symptoms of myalgia and arthralgia. The correct English form is breakbone fever, spelled B-R-E-A-K-B-O-N-E- -F-E-V-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    dengue fever.

Etymology

Coinage attributed to Benjamin Rush because of the symptoms of myalgia and arthralgia.

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

How do you spell "breakbone fever"?
"breakbone fever" is spelled B-R-E-A-K-B-O-N-E- -F-E-V-E-R.
What does "breakbone fever" mean?
As a noun, "breakbone fever" means: dengue fever.
What is the origin of the word "breakbone fever"?
Coinage attributed to Benjamin Rush because of the symptoms of myalgia and arthralgia. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “breakbone fever”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is B-R-E-A-K-B-O-N-E- -F-E-V-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list