man's best friend

noun

"man-s-best-friend" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“man's best friend” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
17
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An affectionate term for a dog, or dogs in general.

Corpus desk

Index EN-man-s-best-friend · man's best friend · English

man's best friend · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 17 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "M" 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 man's best friend
PropertyValue
Headwordman's best friend
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters17
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “man's best friend” in English

man's best friendsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

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

Rare enough to double-check

man's best friend is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An affectionate term for a dog, or dogs in general.".

Zero misspellings are on record for man's best friend in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: Refers to the millennia-long history of close relations, loyalty, friendship, and companionship of dogs with humans. The correct English form is man's best friend, spelled M-A-N-'-S- -B-E-S-T- -F-R-I-E-N-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    An affectionate term for a dog, or dogs in general.

Etymology

Refers to the millennia-long history of close relations, loyalty, friendship, and companionship of dogs with humans.

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

How do you spell "man's best friend"?
"man's best friend" is spelled M-A-N-'-S- -B-E-S-T- -F-R-I-E-N-D.
What does "man's best friend" mean?
As a noun, "man's best friend" means: An affectionate term for a dog, or dogs in general.
What is the origin of the word "man's best friend"?
Refers to the millennia-long history of close relations, loyalty, friendship, and companionship of dogs with humans. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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