law of the jungle
Detailed reference entry for the English word "law-of-the-jungle", 17-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "law-of-the-jungle" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "law-of-the-jungle" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“law of the jungle” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A putative law dictating that one serves one's own interest to the extent that one can, in any situation where legal authority is absent or generally ignored; self-interested behaviour that emerges...
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See how law of the jungle compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | law of the jungle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “law of the jungle” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for law of the jungle is 17 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for law of the jungle in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Introduced by Rudyard Kipling in his book, The Jungle Book (1894), in which he used the term in the literal sense of a legal code governing the behavior of his anthropomorphized animals in an Indian jungle. Note also the (possibly derived) colloquial sense … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is law of the jungle, spelled L-A-W- -O-F- -T-H-E- -J-U-N-G-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A putative law dictating that one serves one's own interest to the extent that one can, in any situation where legal authority is absent or generally ignored; self-interested behaviour that emerges in the absence of law; lawlessness.
- 2Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see law, jungle.
Etymology
Introduced by Rudyard Kipling in his book, The Jungle Book (1894), in which he used the term in the literal sense of a legal code governing the behavior of his anthropomorphized animals in an Indian jungle. Note also the (possibly derived) colloquial sense of jungle (“a place where people behave ruthlessly, unconstrained by law or morality”).
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.
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PlainSpell, “law of the jungle, English word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/en/word/law-of-the-jungle
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Using “law of the jungle”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-A-W- -O-F- -T-H-E- -J-U-N-G-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: