fugazi
/fuˈɡɑːzi/
"fugazi" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fugazi” is uncommon English (frequency #86,296 among 18,613 “F” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,296
- frequency rank, English
- 18,613
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fugazi |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /fuˈɡɑːzi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #86,296 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fugazi” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
fugazi is uncommon English at frequency #86,296 among 18,613 “F” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /fuˈɡɑːzi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for fugazi in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Origin unknown; a number of possibilities have been suggested: * One theory is that it is a corruption of French fougasse (“type of land mine”); flame fougasses were used extensively in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. * Less plausibly, it might be from English… The correct English form is fugazi, spelled F-U-G-A-Z-I.
Definition
- 1Fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.
Etymology
Origin unknown; a number of possibilities have been suggested: * One theory is that it is a corruption of French fougasse (“type of land mine”); flame fougasses were used extensively in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. * Less plausibly, it might be from English fugacious (“fleeting”) or cognates such as Italian fugace (“fleeting”). * It has also been suggested that it could be an acronym of “fucked up, got ambushed, zipped in [a body bag]”, but this is more likely a backronym, not the origin (compare FUBAR).
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 “fugazi”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-U-G-A-Z-I - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fuˈɡɑːzi/ (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
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.