call to account

verb

"call-to-account" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“call to account” 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 challenge or contest; to hold answerable for something.

Corpus desk

Index EN-call-to-account · call to account · English

call to account · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 15 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "C" 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 call to account
PropertyValue
Headwordcall to account
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters15
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “call to account” in English

call to accountranks 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

call to account is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To challenge or contest; to hold answerable for something.".

Zero misspellings are on record for call to account in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is call to account, spelled C-A-L-L- -T-O- -A-C-C-O-U-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    To challenge or contest; to hold answerable for something.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how call to account appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. TravelWatch SouthWest Chairman Chris Irwin said: "This is intolerable. The South West deserves levelling up, not running down. SWR and its sponsors in the Department of Transport must be called to account."

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 "call to account"?
"call to account" is spelled C-A-L-L- -T-O- -A-C-C-O-U-N-T.
What does "call to account" mean?
As a verb, "call to account" means: To challenge or contest; to hold answerable for something.
What language does "call to account" come from?
"call to account" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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