give it one's best shot
"give-it-one-s-best-shot" is a 18-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“give it one's best shot” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 23
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To make one's best effort or attempt; to try as hard as possible.
Corpus desk
Index EN-give-it-one-s-best-shot · give it one's best shot · English
give it one's best shot · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 23 letters
- VOW-7 7 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | give it one's best shot |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 23 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “give it one's best shot” in English
Rare enough to double-check
give it one's best shot is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To make one's best effort or attempt; to try as hard as possible.".
give it one's best shot has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is give it one's best shot, spelled G-I-V-E- -I-T- -O-N-E-'-S- -B-E-S-T- -S-H-O-T.
Definition
- 1To make one's best effort or attempt; to try as hard as possible.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how give it one's best shot appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonyms: give it the old college try; give one's all, go all out, pull out all the stops, do one's utmost, leave it all on the field, empty the tank
I didn't win the contest, but I sure gave it my best shot.
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.