look down on
"look-down-on" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“look down on” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To regard or treat as inferior.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | look down on |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “look down on” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for look down on is 12 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for look down on in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is look down on, spelled L-O-O-K- -D-O-W-N- -O-N.
Definition
- 1To regard or treat as inferior.
- 2To view from a vantage point.
- 3To view [people or events on Earth] from the vantage point of the afterlife (originally, Heaven).
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “look down on”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-O-O-K- -D-O-W-N- -O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.