on purpose
"on-purpose" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“on purpose” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a prep_phrase. 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) - By design, as opposed to by accident; intentionally; deliberately.
Corpus desk
Index EN-on-purpose · on purpose · English
on purpose · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | on purpose |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Prep_phrase |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “on purpose” in English
Rare enough to double-check
on purpose is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for on purpose in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 on purpose, spelled O-N- -P-U-R-P-O-S-E.
Definition
- 1By design, as opposed to by accident; intentionally; deliberately.
- 2In order to (do something); with the objective that.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how on purpose appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That wasn't an accident! You did it on purpose!
Blifil bowed and stammered, and looked like a fool; but Western, without giving him time to form a speech for the purpose, answered, “Well, well, I am to blame, if you will, I always am, certainly; but come, let the girl be fetched back again, or let Mr Blifil go to her.——He’s come up on purpose, and there is no time to be lost.”
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.