burn-the-candle-at-both-ends
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "burn-the-candle-at-both-ends", 28-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "burn-the-candle-at-both-ends" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "burn-the-candle-at-both-ends" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“burn the candle at both ends” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb — the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 28
- letters
Dominant Wiktionary sense: To work hard night and day; to sleep late and wake up early; to overwork or overexert oneself.
Compare similar words
See how burn the candle at both ends compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | burn the candle at both ends |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 28 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “burn the candle at both ends” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for burn the candle at both ends is 28 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for burn the candle at both ends in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Calque of French brûler la chandelle par les deux bouts. First attested in the 18th century, originally in the sense “to be doubly profligate”. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is burn the candle at both ends, spelled B-U-R-N- -T-H-E- -C-A-N-D-L-E- -A-T- -B-O-T-H- -E-N-D-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To work hard night and day; to sleep late and wake up early; to overwork or overexert oneself.
- 2To waste or expend resources twice over; to be doubly profligate.
Etymology
Calque of French brûler la chandelle par les deux bouts. First attested in the 18th century, originally in the sense “to be doubly profligate”.
This word in other languages
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “burn the candle at both ends”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-U-R-N- -T-H-E- -C-A-N-D-L-E- -A-T- -B-O-T-H- -E-N-D-S — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: