key money
"key-money" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“key money” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A payment required by a landlord or agent before accessing rented property.
Corpus desk
Index EN-key-money · key money · English
key money · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "K" 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 | key money |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “key money” in English
Rare enough to double-check
key money is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A payment required by a landlord or agent before accessing rented property.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for key money, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. 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: Calque of German Schlüsselgeld. The correct English form is key money, spelled K-E-Y- -M-O-N-E-Y.
Definition
- 1A payment required by a landlord or agent before accessing rented property.
Etymology
Calque of German Schlüsselgeld.
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.