crack down
/kɹæk ˈdaʊn/
"crack-down" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crack down” 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 take harsh action (against), as when enforcing a law more stringently than before.
Corpus desk
Index EN-crack-down · crack down · English
crack down · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-2 2 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 | crack down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /kɹæk ˈdaʊn/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “crack down” in English
Rare enough to double-check
crack down is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /kɹæk ˈdaʊn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To take harsh action (against), as when enforcing a law more stringently than before.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for crack down, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is crack down, spelled C-R-A-C-K- -D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1To take harsh action (against), as when enforcing a law more stringently than before.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how crack down appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The authorities are trying to crack down on drunk driving during the holidays.
At this point they're hoping that the government will crack down and will put an end to deceptive rental offerings.
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.