down on one's luck
"down-on-one-s-luck" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“down on one's luck” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 18
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Unlucky or undergoing a period of bad luck, especially with respect to financial matters.
Corpus desk
Index EN-down-on-one-s-luck · down on one's luck · English
down on one's luck · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 18 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 | down on one's luck |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “down on one's luck” in English
Rare enough to double-check
down on one's luck is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Unlucky or undergoing a period of bad luck, especially with respect to financial matters.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for down on one's luck, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is down on one's luck, spelled D-O-W-N- -O-N- -O-N-E-'-S- -L-U-C-K.
Definition
- 1Unlucky or undergoing a period of bad luck, especially with respect to financial matters.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how down on one's luck appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I'm sorry to hear you are down on your luck ;
If Crabtree is down on his luck he will most likely be willing to do anything for money.
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.