gag order

noun

"gag-order" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“gag order” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. 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) - An order issued by a court prohibiting specified persons from discussing a case outside limitations set by the court.

Corpus desk

Index EN-gag-order · gag order · English

gag order · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "G" 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.

Key facts for gag order
PropertyValue
Headwordgag order
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “gag order” in English

gag orderfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

gag order is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

gag order doesn't appear in our generated misspelling 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, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is gag order, spelled G-A-G- -O-R-D-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    An order issued by a court prohibiting specified persons from discussing a case outside limitations set by the court.
  2. 2
    Any directive from a person in authority prohibiting another person from speaking about a certain thing.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how gag order appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has continued apace with comments that test the limits of what he can say. Two days after the hearing, prosecutors offered four new instances in which they said he had violated the gag order.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "gag order"?
"gag order" is spelled G-A-G- -O-R-D-E-R.
What does "gag order" mean?
As a noun, "gag order" means: An order issued by a court prohibiting specified persons from discussing a case outside limitations set by the court.
What language does "gag order" come from?
"gag order" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list