official language
"official-language" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“official language” 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) - A language afforded an elevated status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction, typically for government use.
Corpus desk
Index EN-official-language · official language · English
official language · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-8 8 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 | official language |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “official language” in English
Rare enough to double-check
official language is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A language afforded an elevated status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction, typically for government use.".
Zero misspellings are on record for official language in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, 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 official language, spelled O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L- -L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E.
Definition
- 1A language afforded an elevated status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction, typically for government use.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how official language appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
A lot of multilingual countries promote an official language, but the United States has never done so with English. In fact, the US has no official language.
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order naming English the official language of the United States.
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.