breakbone fever

noun

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

The verdict

“breakbone fever” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. 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) - dengue fever.

Corpus desk

Index EN-breakbone-fever · breakbone fever · English

breakbone fever · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 15 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "B" 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.

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

Long-tail rank of “breakbone fever” in English

breakbone feverranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

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

Rare enough to double-check

breakbone fever is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list