gammy
/ˈɡæmi/
"gammy" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gammy” is an uncommon English word, ranked #80,474 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #80,474
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Injured, or not functioning properly (with respect to legs).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gammy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɡæmi/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #80,474 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gammy” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gammy is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡæmi/. Corpus data places it at rank #80,474 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for gammy in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Origin obscure and uncertain. Possibly from the English dialectal (North Midlands) adjective game (“lame”), Welsh cam (“crooked”), or from Irish cam (“bent”), by way of Shelta. Compare also Old Occitan gambi (“lame, limping”), related to Old Occitan gamba (… The correct English form is gammy, spelled G-A-M-M-Y.
Definition
- 1Injured, or not functioning properly (with respect to legs).
- 2Fake; counterfeit.
- 3Bad; unfavourable.
Etymology
Origin obscure and uncertain. Possibly from the English dialectal (North Midlands) adjective game (“lame”), Welsh cam (“crooked”), or from Irish cam (“bent”), by way of Shelta. Compare also Old Occitan gambi (“lame, limping”), related to Old Occitan gamba (“leg”) (see also French jambe (“leg”), English gam (“leg”)).
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 “gammy”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-A-M-M-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɡæmi/ (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
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.