failover

noun

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

"failover" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“failover” is uncommon English (frequency #90,435 among 2,507 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#90,435
frequency rank, English
2,507
“F” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An automatic switch to a secondary system on failure of the primary system, such as a means for ensuring high availability of some critical resource (such as a computer system), involving a paralle...

Corpus desk

Index EN-failover · failover · English

failover · rank #90,435 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #90,435
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,507
  • PHOTO-FINISH faience

Nearest frequency peer: faience (-1 rank slots)

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.

Long-tail ranks near “failover”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “failover” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for failover
PropertyValue
Headwordfailover
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Frequency rank#90,435
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “failover” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).failoverfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “faience” (#90,434), “fanged” (#90,436), “extraversion” (#90,432). Among 2,507 “F” headwords, “failover” is #90,435. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

failover is uncommon English at frequency #90,435 among 2,507 “F” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An automatic switch to a secondary system on failure of the primary system, such as a means for ensuring high availability of some critical resource (such as a computer system), involving a paralle...".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for failover, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. 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: Deverbal from fail over. The correct English form is failover, spelled F-A-I-L-O-V-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    An automatic switch to a secondary system on failure of the primary system, such as a means for ensuring high availability of some critical resource (such as a computer system), involving a parallel backup system which is kept running at all times, so that, upon detected failure of the primary system, processing can be automatically shifted over to the backup.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Horizontal scaling gives you some failover and flexibility that you normally cannot get with only vertical scaling.
  2. while Tungsten is not heavily redundant as these systems, the ability of Lustre to support some failover can be leveraged to eliminate single points of failure.

Etymology

Deverbal from fail over.

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

How do you spell "failover"?
"failover" is spelled F-A-I-L-O-V-E-R.
What does "failover" mean?
As a noun, "failover" means: An automatic switch to a secondary system on failure of the primary system, such as a means for ensuring high availability of some critical resource (such as a computer system), involving a paralle...
What is the origin of the word "failover"?
Deverbal from fail over. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "failover", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

exalting#90,428Federici#90,443evensong#90,426estancia#90,420

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list