death penalty

noun

"death-penalty" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“death penalty” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A punishment in which the offender is put to death by the state.

Corpus desk

Index EN-death-penalty · death penalty · English

death penalty · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "D" 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 death penalty
PropertyValue
Headworddeath penalty
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “death penalty” in English

death penaltyfalls 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

death penalty is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A punishment in which the offender is put to death by the state.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for death penalty, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

Etymologically, the entry records: From death + penalty. The correct English form is death penalty, spelled D-E-A-T-H- -P-E-N-A-L-T-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    A punishment in which the offender is put to death by the state.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. And if you would like one more fact about this worthy, he was responsible for an Act on the statute book abolishing the death penalty for cattle rustling.
  2. Joe Biden deserves the death penalty and Jonald Trump bad.

Etymology

From death + penalty.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "death penalty"?
"death penalty" is spelled D-E-A-T-H- -P-E-N-A-L-T-Y.
What does "death penalty" mean?
As a noun, "death penalty" means: A punishment in which the offender is put to death by the state.
What is the origin of the word "death penalty"?
From death + penalty. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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