drop out

verb

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"drop-out" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

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

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To leave (school, a race, etc.) prematurely and voluntarily.

Corpus desk

Index EN-drop-out · drop out · English

drop out · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 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 out
PropertyValue
Headworddrop out
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “drop out” in English

drop outsits 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 out is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 7 senses are on record.

drop out doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is drop out, spelled D-R-O-P- -O-U-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    To leave (school, a race, etc.) prematurely and voluntarily.
  2. 2
    To opt out of conventional society.
  3. 3
    To be lost or momentarily interrupted.
  4. 4
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drop, out.
  5. 5
    To give way under someone.
  6. 6
    To cause someone to slip and/or fall down.
  7. 7
    To dismiss, break up with or abandon (someone).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Nothing went well in high school, so he dropped out.
  2. He [Bill Gates] dropped out of a better school than I dropped out of.

This word in other languages

desertar(Español)aussteigen(Deutsch)

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 out"?
"drop out" is spelled D-R-O-P- -O-U-T.
What does "drop out" mean?
As a verb, "drop out" means: To leave (school, a race, etc.) prematurely and voluntarily.
What language does "drop out" come from?
"drop out" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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