for fear that
"for-fear-that" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“for fear that” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a conjunction. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In order to attempt to prevent the risk that (a particular incident or event might occur).
Corpus desk
Index EN-for-fear-that · for fear that · English
for fear that · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | for fear that |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Conjunction |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “for fear that” in English
Rare enough to double-check
for fear that is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aconjunction. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In order to attempt to prevent the risk that (a particular incident or event might occur).".
No misspelling variants are generated for for fear that in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is for fear that, spelled F-O-R- -F-E-A-R- -T-H-A-T.
Definition
- 1In order to attempt to prevent the risk that (a particular incident or event might occur).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how for fear that appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He never comes for fear that it'll happen again, and I didn't tell you about it before for fear that he would find out.
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.