in the thick of
"in-the-thick-of" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“in the thick of” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a preposition. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In the middle of (something difficult).
Corpus desk
Index EN-in-the-thick-of · in the thick of · English
in the thick of · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" 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 | in the thick of |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Preposition |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “in the thick of” in English
Rare enough to double-check
in the thick of is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as apreposition. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "In the middle of (something difficult).".
No generated misspelling entries exist for in the thick of in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. 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 headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is in the thick of, spelled I-N- -T-H-E- -T-H-I-C-K- -O-F.
Definition
- 1In the middle of (something difficult).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how in the thick of appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In the thick of the railway controversies of his day, Francis naturally had his prejudices. It seems that he cordially disliked the aristocracy in general.
His stories about Huey, Eleanor and Jack, and other bigwigs of various worlds, reveal a life lived in the thick of legend.
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.