high spirits

noun

"high-spirits" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“high spirits” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
12
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Joyous elation, joyfulness, joyousness.

Corpus desk

Index EN-high-spirits · high spirits · English

high spirits · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" 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 high spirits
PropertyValue
Headwordhigh spirits
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “high spirits” in English

high spiritsranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

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

Rare enough to double-check

high spirits is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Joyous elation, joyfulness, joyousness.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for high spirits in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. 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.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is high spirits, spelled H-I-G-H- -S-P-I-R-I-T-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Joyous elation, joyfulness, joyousness.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups. The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpecte…
  2. Apart from yachting and the cross-Channel steamer it was her first experience of being at sea and she was in high spirits.

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 "high spirits"?
"high spirits" is spelled H-I-G-H- -S-P-I-R-I-T-S.
What does "high spirits" mean?
As a noun, "high spirits" means: Joyous elation, joyfulness, joyousness.
What language does "high spirits" come from?
"high spirits" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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