cordon off
"cordon-off" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cordon off” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. 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) - To protect from intrusion by enclosing in a rope or other barrier.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cordon-off · cordon off · English
cordon off · 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 "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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cordon off |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “cordon off” in English
Rare enough to double-check
cordon off is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To protect from intrusion by enclosing in a rope or other barrier.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for cordon off, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is cordon off, spelled C-O-R-D-O-N- -O-F-F.
Definition
- 1To protect from intrusion by enclosing in a rope or other barrier.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cordon off appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
A portion of the office was cordoned off during the outsiders' tour.
The police cordoned off the street while they investigated the accident.
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.