expressis verbis
"expressis-verbis" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“expressis verbis” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Expressly; explicitly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-expressis-verbis · expressis verbis · English
expressis verbis · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "E" 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 | expressis verbis |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “expressis verbis” in English
Rare enough to double-check
expressis verbis is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Expressly; explicitly.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for expressis verbis, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Unadapted borrowing from Latin expressis verbis (“pronounced with words”). The correct English form is expressis verbis, spelled E-X-P-R-E-S-S-I-S- -V-E-R-B-I-S.
Definition
- 1Expressly; explicitly.
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from Latin expressis verbis (“pronounced with words”).
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.