Lord love a duck
"lord-love-a-duck" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Lord love a duck” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An exclamation of surprise.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lord-love-a-duck · Lord love a duck · English
Lord love a duck · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-5 5 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Lord love a duck |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “Lord love a duck” in English
Rare enough to double-check
Lord love a duck is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An exclamation of surprise.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Lord love a duck, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Variant of earlier (18th century) Lord love you, God love us, etc. used as exclamation of exasperation or surprise. The significance of the duck is unknown. Attested from the late 19th century. The correct English form is Lord love a duck, spelled L-O-R-D- -L-O-V-E- -A- -D-U-C-K.
Definition
- 1An exclamation of surprise.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Lord love a duck appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"Lord love a duck!" he observed in a dazed voice — "What's this?"
Gypsy Rose passed me a tuna on rye. "Lord love a duck, I hope she's not Carita Magenta's ghost.
Etymology
Variant of earlier (18th century) Lord love you, God love us, etc. used as exclamation of exasperation or surprise. The significance of the duck is unknown. Attested from the late 19th century.
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.