off-limits
"off-limits" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“off-limits” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Not to be entered or used; restricted.
Corpus desk
Index EN-off-limits · off-limits · English
off-limits · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" 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 | off-limits |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “off-limits” in English
Rare enough to double-check
off-limits is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Not to be entered or used; restricted.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for off-limits, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is off-limits, spelled O-F-F---L-I-M-I-T-S.
Definition
- 1Not to be entered or used; restricted.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how off-limits appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The pond was off-limits to swimmers.
Irregardless, ex-boyfriends are just off-limits to friends. I mean that's just, like, the rules of feminism.
Synonyms
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.