dumbass
/ˈdʌm.æs/
"dumbass" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dumbass” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,503 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,503
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A stupid or foolish person.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dumbass |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdʌm.æs/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #13,503 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dumbass” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dumbass is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdʌm.æs/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,503 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A stupid or foolish person.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for dumbass, with forms such as "ddumbass", "dmubass", and "dubmass". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "Donbass", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From dumb + ass. It is likely that ¹ass (= donkey), not ²ass (= buttocks), was the original sense within this compound noun (solid compound or open compound), but neither sense is precluded, and many people today may uncritically parse the term in the latte… The correct English form is dumbass, spelled D-U-M-B-A-S-S.
Definition
- 1A stupid or foolish person.
Etymology
From dumb + ass. It is likely that ¹ass (= donkey), not ²ass (= buttocks), was the original sense within this compound noun (solid compound or open compound), but neither sense is precluded, and many people today may uncritically parse the term in the latter way, even if it is misapprehensive. Apparent analogy with forms such as hard-ass and big-ass would naturally lend support to the second parsing. A similar synergy can be seen in the fact that the terms buttload and assload originated as literally meaning a cartload and the load transportable by a single donkey (respectively), but probably most English speakers today would assume that their derivation involves the buttocks.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddumbass,dmubass,dubmass,dumabss,dumbas,dumbbass,dumbsas,dummbass,udmbass
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dumbass - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “dumbass”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-U-M-B-A-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈdʌm.æs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Donbass” - see the side-by-side comparison. dumbass vs Donbass
- 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.