by-product
"by-product" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“by-product” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Something made incidentally during the production of something else.
Corpus desk
Index EN-by-product · by-product · English
by-product · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | by-product |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “by-product” in English
Rare enough to double-check
by-product is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for by-product in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From by- + product. The correct English form is by-product, spelled B-Y---P-R-O-D-U-C-T.
Definition
- 1Something made incidentally during the production of something else.
- 2A consequence, especially a side effect.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how by-product appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
It was about this time that the first experiments were made (in Germany) with basic slag, a material which had hitherto been regarded as a worthless by-product of steel manufacture. A year or two later field trials were begun in England, with the final result that basic slag has become recognized as a valuable source of phosphorus for growing crops, and i…
The many Indian restaurants all over Britain are a by-product of the large waves of immigration from the subcontinent.
Etymology
From by- + product.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.