killjoy
/ˈkɪlˌd͡ʒɔɪ/
"killjoy" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“killjoy” is uncommon English (frequency #70,001 among 1,236 “K” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,001
- frequency rank, English
- 1,236
- “K” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person who is anti-fun, or prevents others from having fun.
Corpus desk
Index EN-killjoy · killjoy · English
killjoy · rank #70,001 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #70,001
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,236
- PHOTO-FINISH kina
Nearest frequency peer: kina (+1 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “killjoy”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Kenichi
Kenichi
30,005 corpus weight
- keystroke
keystroke
30,003 corpus weight
- Khashoggi
Khashoggi
30,002 corpus weight
- killjoy
killjoy
30,000 corpus weight
- kina
kina
29,999 corpus weight
- kitchenette
kitchenette
29,996 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “killjoy” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | killjoy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɪlˌd͡ʒɔɪ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #70,001 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “killjoy” in English
Rare enough to double-check
killjoy is uncommon English at frequency #70,001 among 1,236 “K” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkɪlˌd͡ʒɔɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A person who is anti-fun, or prevents others from having fun.".
killjoy doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, 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, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From kill + joy, first attested in 1776. The correct English form is killjoy, spelled K-I-L-L-J-O-Y.
Definition
- 1A person who is anti-fun, or prevents others from having fun.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how killjoy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“If you mean me, sir, I call you and every one else to the inspection of my professional life. As to Christian or unchristian, I repudiate your canting palavering Christianity; and as to the way in which I spend my income, it is not my principle to maintain thieves and cheat offspring of their due inheritance in order to support religion and set myself up…
What kill-joy have we here? […] I feel it in my bones some rascal is come to Galing, one that bringeth ill hap in his pocket and a shadow athwart the sun on this our day of festival.
Etymology
From kill + joy, first attested in 1776.
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "killjoy", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).