good-for-nothing
"good-for-nothing" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“good-for-nothing” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person of little worth or usefulness.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | good-for-nothing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “good-for-nothing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for good-for-nothing is 16 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A person of little worth or usefulness.".
Zero misspellings are on record for good-for-nothing in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is good-for-nothing, spelled G-O-O-D---F-O-R---N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1A person of little worth or usefulness.
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 “good-for-nothing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-O-O-D---F-O-R---N-O-T-H-I-N-G - 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.