martial law
/ˈmɑːʃəl lɔː/
"martial-law" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“martial law” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Rule by military authorities, especially when imposed on a civilian population in time of war or other crisis, or in an occupied territory.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | martial law |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɑːʃəl lɔː/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “martial law” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
martial law is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈmɑːʃəl lɔː/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Rule by military authorities, especially when imposed on a civilian population in time of war or other crisis, or in an occupied territory.".
Zero misspellings are on record for martial law in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is martial law, spelled M-A-R-T-I-A-L- -L-A-W.
Definition
- 1Rule by military authorities, especially when imposed on a civilian population in time of war or other crisis, or in an occupied territory.
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 “martial law”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-R-T-I-A-L- -L-A-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmɑːʃəl lɔː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.