bust one's neck

verb

"bust-one-s-neck" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“bust one's neck” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. 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) - To work exceptionally hard.

Corpus desk

Index EN-bust-one-s-neck · bust one's neck · English

bust one's neck · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 15 letters
  • VOW-4 4 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 bust one's neck
PropertyValue
Headwordbust one's neck
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters15
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “bust one's neck” in English

bust one's neckfalls 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.

Rare enough to double-check

bust one's neck is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To work exceptionally hard.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for bust one's neck, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is bust one's neck, spelled B-U-S-T- -O-N-E-'-S- -N-E-C-K.

Definition

  1. 1
    To work exceptionally hard.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how bust one's neck appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Liz, I busted my neck getting you those votes!

Synonyms

bust one's assbust one's buttsweat blood

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 "bust one's neck"?
"bust one's neck" is spelled B-U-S-T- -O-N-E-'-S- -N-E-C-K.
What does "bust one's neck" mean?
As a verb, "bust one's neck" means: To work exceptionally hard.
What language does "bust one's neck" come from?
"bust one's neck" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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