go up in smoke

verb

"go-up-in-smoke" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“go up in smoke” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To catch fire and burn.

Corpus desk

Index EN-go-up-in-smoke · go up in smoke · English

go up in smoke · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-5 5 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 go up in smoke
PropertyValue
Headwordgo up in smoke
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “go up in smoke” in English

go up in smokesits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

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

Rare enough to double-check

go up in smoke is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for go up in smoke, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is go up in smoke, spelled G-O- -U-P- -I-N- -S-M-O-K-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    To catch fire and burn.
  2. 2
    To be completely ruined, devastated, or reduced to nothingness.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Near-synonym: evaporate
  2. When the bank refused the credit, all our plans went up in smoke.

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 "go up in smoke"?
"go up in smoke" is spelled G-O- -U-P- -I-N- -S-M-O-K-E.
What does "go up in smoke" mean?
As a verb, "go up in smoke" means: To catch fire and burn.
What language does "go up in smoke" come from?
"go up in smoke" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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