hamstrung
"hamstrung" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hamstrung” is uncommon English (frequency #62,947 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #62,947
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Restricted as if by being crippled with a hamstring; hamstringed.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hamstrung · hamstrung · English
hamstrung · rank #62,947 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #62,947
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH hairbrush
Nearest frequency peer: hairbrush (-2 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “hamstrung”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- gunsmith
gunsmith
37,062 corpus weight
- gushes
gushes
37,061 corpus weight
- hairbrush
hairbrush
37,056 corpus weight
- hamstrung
hamstrung
37,054 corpus weight
- handrail
handrail
37,052 corpus weight
- Hargrave
Hargrave
37,049 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “hamstrung” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hamstrung |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #62,947 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “hamstrung” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hamstrung is uncommon English at frequency #62,947 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Restricted as if by being crippled with a hamstring; hamstringed.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for hamstrung, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is hamstrung, spelled H-A-M-S-T-R-U-N-G.
Definition
- 1Restricted as if by being crippled with a hamstring; hamstringed.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hamstrung appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The hamstrung State environmental Protection Administration might get ministerial status.
To be hamstrung is to be unable to do what you want to do, as in “the government is hamstrung by the strike.” Literally it is to be crippled because your hamstrings have been cut and you cannot bend your knee. The word ham arose in English […]
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hamstrung", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).