moonlighting
"moonlighting" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“moonlighting” is uncommon English (frequency #53,113 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,113
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of, or a period of, working on the side (at a secondary job), often in the evening or during the night, either openly or secretly.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | moonlighting |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #53,113 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “moonlighting” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
moonlighting is uncommon English at frequency #53,113 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for moonlighting, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, 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, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is moonlighting, spelled M-O-O-N-L-I-G-H-T-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of, or a period of, working on the side (at a secondary job), often in the evening or during the night, either openly or secretly.
- 2Moonshining.
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “moonlighting”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-O-O-N-L-I-G-H-T-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.