foolhardy
/ˈfuːlhɑːdi/
"foolhardy" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“foolhardy” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #48,753 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #48,753
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger; boldly rash; hotheaded.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | foolhardy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈfuːlhɑːdi/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #48,753 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “foolhardy” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for foolhardy is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈfuːlhɑːdi/. Corpus data places it at rank #48,753 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger; boldly rash; hotheaded.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for foolhardy, with forms such as "ffoolhardy", "folhardy", and "folohardy". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English folehardy, foolhardi, folherdi, from Old French fol hardi (“foolishly bold”), from Old French fol (“foolish, silly; insane, mad”) (from Latin follis (“bellows; purse, sack; inflated ball; belly, paunch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-Europ… The correct English form is foolhardy, spelled F-O-O-L-H-A-R-D-Y.
Definition
- 1Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger; boldly rash; hotheaded.
Etymology
From Middle English folehardy, foolhardi, folherdi, from Old French fol hardi (“foolishly bold”), from Old French fol (“foolish, silly; insane, mad”) (from Latin follis (“bellows; purse, sack; inflated ball; belly, paunch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)) + Old French hardi (“durable, hardy, tough”) (past tense of hardir (“to harden”), from the unattested Frankish *hartjan, from Proto-Germanic *harduz (“hard; brave”)), equivalent to fool + hardy. Compare fool-bold, fool-large, etc.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ffoolhardy,folhardy,folohardy,foohlardy,foolahrdy,foolhadry,foolharddy,foolhardyy,foolharrdy,foolharyd,foolhhardy,foolhrady,foollhardy,ofolhardy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of foolhardy - 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 “foolhardy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-O-O-L-H-A-R-D-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈfuːlhɑːdi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.