housebreaking

noun

"housebreaking" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“housebreaking” is uncommon English (frequency #93,799 among 23,837 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#93,799
frequency rank, English
23,837
“H” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of breaking into another person's house with unlawful intent.

Key facts for housebreaking
PropertyValue
Headwordhousebreaking
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Frequency rank#93,799
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “housebreaking” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). housebreaking lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

housebreaking is uncommon English at frequency #93,799 among 23,837 “H” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act of breaking into another person's house with unlawful intent.".

housebreaking doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From house + breaking. The correct English form is housebreaking, spelled H-O-U-S-E-B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    The act of breaking into another person's house with unlawful intent.

Etymology

From house + breaking.

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

How do you spell "housebreaking"?
"housebreaking" is spelled H-O-U-S-E-B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G.
What does "housebreaking" mean?
As a noun, "housebreaking" means: The act of breaking into another person's house with unlawful intent.
What is the origin of the word "housebreaking"?
From house + breaking. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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.

Using “housebreaking”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is H-O-U-S-E-B-R-E-A-K-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

Other uncommon English words near this rank

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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list