freeze up
"freeze-up" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“freeze 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
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To be adversely affected by ice, and not function.
Corpus desk
Index EN-freeze-up · freeze up · English
freeze up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 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 | freeze up |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “freeze up” in English
Rare enough to double-check
freeze up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for freeze up in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. 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.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is freeze up, spelled F-R-E-E-Z-E- -U-P.
Definition
- 1To be adversely affected by ice, and not function.
- 2(of machines and software) To come or bring to a sudden halt, stop working (functioning).
- 3(of people and other animals) To stop or be stopped due to attentiveness, fear, surprise, etc.
- 4To become cold and formal in demeanour.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how freeze up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But these precautions lost some of their merit when the L.T. trains themselves became frozen up at depots overnight.
Since the last update, the program freezes up after a few minutes of use.
This word in other languages
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.