lace up

verb

"lace-up" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“lace up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
7
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To fasten the laces of something.

Corpus desk

Index EN-lace-up · lace up · English

lace up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "L" 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.

Key facts for lace up
PropertyValue
Headwordlace up
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters7
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “lace up” in English

lace upranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

lace up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for lace up, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is lace up, spelled L-A-C-E- -U-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    To fasten the laces of something.
  2. 2
    To insert (film) into a projector.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how lace up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. However, with their first genuine attack, Sunderland scored - and they did it with Tottenham needlessly down to 10 men as Gallas laced up a replacement pair of boots.
  2. If the film arrived with minute to go, there would still be time for the technicians to lace it up […]

Antonyms

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "lace up"?
"lace up" is spelled L-A-C-E- -U-P.
What does "lace up" mean?
As a verb, "lace up" means: To fasten the laces of something.
What language does "lace up" come from?
"lace up" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list