droop
/ˈdɹuːp/
"droop" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“droop” is an uncommon English word, ranked #52,283 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #52,283
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To hang downward; to sag.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | droop |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈdɹuːp/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #52,283 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “droop” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for droop is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɹuːp/. Corpus data places it at rank #52,283 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for droop, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English droupen, from Old Norse drúpa (“to droop”), from Proto-Germanic *drūpaną, *drupōną (“to hang down, drip, drop”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewb- (“to drip, drop”). Doublet of drip and drop. The correct English form is droop, spelled D-R-O-O-P.
Definition
- 1To hang downward; to sag.
- 2To slowly become limp; to bend gradually.
- 3To lose all energy, enthusiasm or happiness; to flag.
- 4To allow to droop or sink.
- 5To proceed downward, or toward a close; to decline.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English droupen, from Old Norse drúpa (“to droop”), from Proto-Germanic *drūpaną, *drupōną (“to hang down, drip, drop”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewb- (“to drip, drop”). Doublet of drip and drop.
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 “droop”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-O-O-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈdɹuːp/ (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.