dumbfound
/ˌdʌmˈfaʊnd/
"dumbfound" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dumbfound” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To confuse and bewilder; to leave speechless.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dumbfound · dumbfound · English
dumbfound · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dumbfound |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˌdʌmˈfaʊnd/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “dumbfound” in English
Rare enough to double-check
dumbfound is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /ˌdʌmˈfaʊnd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To confuse and bewilder; to leave speechless.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for dumbfound, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Blend of dumb + confound. The correct English form is dumbfound, spelled D-U-M-B-F-O-U-N-D.
Definition
- 1To confuse and bewilder; to leave speechless.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how dumbfound appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
A bunch of nice, middle-class women debated on how to "rescue" prostitutes from their "terrible" fate. By invitation, the conference was attended by a number of prostitutes, who dumbfounded those nice, bourgeois ladies by making it clear that they had no desire whatever to be "rescued"
Etymology
Blend of dumb + confound.
Synonyms
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.