director general
"director-general" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“director general” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution. In reference to government, the executive officer below the minister of the department.
Corpus desk
Index EN-director-general · director general · English
director general · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-6 6 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | director general |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “director general” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
director general is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution. In reference to government, the executive officer below the minister of the department.".
director general has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: A calque of French directeur général, hence the unusual order of adjective following noun. The correct English form is director general, spelled D-I-R-E-C-T-O-R- -G-E-N-E-R-A-L.
Definition
- 1The highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution. In reference to government, the executive officer below the minister of the department.
Etymology
A calque of French directeur général, hence the unusual order of adjective following noun.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.