gallows humor
"gallows-humor" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gallows humor” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A form of comedy that still manages to be humorous in the face of, and in response to, a tragic or hopeless situation.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gallows humor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gallows humor” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
gallows humor is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A form of comedy that still manages to be humorous in the face of, and in response to, a tragic or hopeless situation.".
Zero misspellings are on record for gallows humor in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is gallows humor, spelled G-A-L-L-O-W-S- -H-U-M-O-R.
Definition
- 1A form of comedy that still manages to be humorous in the face of, and in response to, a tragic or hopeless situation.
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
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Using “gallows humor”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-A-L-L-O-W-S- -H-U-M-O-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.