dolt
/dɒlt/
"dolt" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dolt” is an uncommon English word, ranked #61,423 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #61,423
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A stupid person; a blockhead or dullard.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dolt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɒlt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #61,423 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dolt” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dolt is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɒlt/. Corpus data places it at rank #61,423 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A stupid person; a blockhead or dullard.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for dolt, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: First used as a noun in Early Modern English, from dialectal English dold (“stupid, confused”), from Middle English dold, a variant of dulled, dult (“dulled”), past participle of dullen, dollen (“to make dull, make stupid”), from dull, dul, dwal (“stupid”).… The correct English form is dolt, spelled D-O-L-T.
Definition
- 1A stupid person; a blockhead or dullard.
Etymology
First used as a noun in Early Modern English, from dialectal English dold (“stupid, confused”), from Middle English dold, a variant of dulled, dult (“dulled”), past participle of dullen, dollen (“to make dull, make stupid”), from dull, dul, dwal (“stupid”). More at dull.
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “dolt”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-O-L-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɒlt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.