drop by

verb

"drop-by" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“drop by” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
7
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To visit informally and spontaneously.

Corpus desk

Index EN-drop-by · drop by · English

drop by · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-2 2 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.

Key facts for drop by
PropertyValue
Headworddrop by
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters7
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “drop by” in English

drop bysits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

drop by is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To visit informally and spontaneously.".

drop by doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is drop by, spelled D-R-O-P- -B-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    To visit informally and spontaneously.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how drop by appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. I dropped by on Thursday, but you were out.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "drop by"?
"drop by" is spelled D-R-O-P- -B-Y.
What does "drop by" mean?
As a verb, "drop by" means: To visit informally and spontaneously.
What language does "drop by" come from?
"drop by" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list