doolally tap
"doolally-tap" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“doolally tap” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Camp fever; by extension, madness, eccentricity.
Corpus desk
Index EN-doolally-tap · doolally tap · English
doolally tap · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | doolally tap |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “doolally tap” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
doolally tap is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Camp fever; by extension, madness, eccentricity.".
doolally tap doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Deolali (the name of a former British army camp 100 miles north-east of Bombay, used as a transit station for soldiers awaiting transport back to Britain) + tap (from Persian or Urdu تب (tab, “malarial fever”), ultimately from Sanskrit ताप (tāpa, “heat… The correct English form is doolally tap, spelled D-O-O-L-A-L-L-Y- -T-A-P.
Definition
- 1Camp fever; by extension, madness, eccentricity.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how doolally tap appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mrrhhhh, nothing wrong with me, sergeant, it's just the old Doolally Tap.
'The Doolally tap,' my father would say, mysteriously, and McAllister would agree.
Etymology
From Deolali (the name of a former British army camp 100 miles north-east of Bombay, used as a transit station for soldiers awaiting transport back to Britain) + tap (from Persian or Urdu تب (tab, “malarial fever”), ultimately from Sanskrit ताप (tāpa, “heat; fever”)). According to one suggestion, to go doolally tap was to go crazy while waiting.
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 September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
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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.