how do you do
"how-do-you-do" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“how do you do” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A greeting used upon being introduced to someone. Alternatives are how are you, pleased to meet you, and nice to meet you. (Sometimes used as a rhetorical question among familiar parties, depending...
Corpus desk
Index EN-how-do-you-do · how do you do · English
how do you do · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-6 6 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | how do you do |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “how do you do” in English
Rare enough to double-check
how do you do is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aphrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A greeting used upon being introduced to someone. Alternatives are how are you, pleased to meet you, and nice to meet you. (Sometimes used as a rhetorical question among familiar parties, depending...".
how do you do has no tracked misspelling variants, 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, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is how do you do, spelled H-O-W- -D-O- -Y-O-U- -D-O.
Definition
- 1A greeting used upon being introduced to someone. Alternatives are how are you, pleased to meet you, and nice to meet you. (Sometimes used as a rhetorical question among familiar parties, depending on the region).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how how do you do appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"How do you do?" began Pollyanna politely. "I'm from Miss Polly Harrington, and I'd like to see Mrs. Snow, please."
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.