fess up
"fess-up" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fess up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To confess to something; to admit something.
Corpus desk
Index EN-fess-up · fess up · English
fess up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "F" 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 | fess up |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “fess up” in English
Rare enough to double-check
fess up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To confess to something; to admit something.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for fess up, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of confess up. The correct English form is fess up, spelled F-E-S-S- -U-P.
Definition
- 1To confess to something; to admit something.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how fess up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"‛Fess up," she persisted. "Have you boys been quarreling again?"
And you know, one of the things that I hope is that the American people will find when we make a mistake, we're willing to 'fess up to it and change.
Etymology
Clipping of confess up.
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.