Great Satan
"great-satan" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Great Satan” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The United States of America, particularly with regard to its perceived imperialist foreign policy.
Corpus desk
Index EN-great-satan · Great Satan · English
Great Satan · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | Great Satan |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “Great Satan” in English
Rare enough to double-check
Great Satan is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aproper noun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The United States of America, particularly with regard to its perceived imperialist foreign policy.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for Great Satan, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Calque of Iranian Persian شیطان بزرگ (šeytân-e bozorg), which is more often the name of the largest of the three jamarat at which stones are thrown during the hajj. The derogatory sense was coined by Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989 Ruhollah Khomein… The correct English form is Great Satan, spelled G-R-E-A-T- -S-A-T-A-N.
Definition
- 1The United States of America, particularly with regard to its perceived imperialist foreign policy.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Great Satan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ahmadinejad, facing serious political problems, can posture about standing up to the Great Satan.
Or, have Muslims been alienated from the Congress because of the Prime Minister's warm embrace of the Great Satan?
Etymology
Calque of Iranian Persian شیطان بزرگ (šeytân-e bozorg), which is more often the name of the largest of the three jamarat at which stones are thrown during the hajj. The derogatory sense was coined by Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989 Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, one day after the onset of the Iran hostage crisis.
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.