great-grandfather
"great-grandfather" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“great-grandfather” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The father of one's grandparent.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | great-grandfather |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “great-grandfather” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
great-grandfather is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The father of one's grandparent.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for great-grandfather, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From great- + grandfather. The correct English form is great-grandfather, spelled G-R-E-A-T---G-R-A-N-D-F-A-T-H-E-R.
Definition
- 1The father of one's grandparent.
Etymology
From great- + grandfather.
Synonyms
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 “great-grandfather”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-R-E-A-T---G-R-A-N-D-F-A-T-H-E-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.