kick someone when they are down
"kick-someone-when-they-are-down" is a 26-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“kick someone when they are down” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 31
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To make things worse for someone who is going through a difficult time.
Corpus desk
Index EN-kick-someone-when-they-a · kick someone when they are down · English
kick someone when they are down · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 31 letters
- VOW-11 11 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 | kick someone when they are down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 31 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “kick someone when they are down” in English
Rare enough to double-check
kick someone when they are down is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To make things worse for someone who is going through a difficult time.".
Zero misspellings are on record for kick someone when they are down in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is kick someone when they are down, spelled K-I-C-K- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -W-H-E-N- -T-H-E-Y- -A-R-E- -D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1To make things worse for someone who is going through a difficult time.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how kick someone when they are down appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
They would never kick someone when they are down or give themselves an unfair advantage by cheating or stealing. The implications of this type of behavior are huge.
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.