open letter

noun

"open-letter" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“open letter” 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 September 3, 2026) - A letter addressed to one person, or more, but published (as for example in a newspaper) for the public to read.

Corpus desk

Index EN-open-letter · open letter · English

open letter · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 11 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.

Key facts for open letter
PropertyValue
Headwordopen letter
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters11
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “open letter” in English

open lettersits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

open letter is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A letter addressed to one person, or more, but published (as for example in a newspaper) for the public to read.".

No misspelling variants are generated for open letter in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, 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, 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 open letter, spelled O-P-E-N- -L-E-T-T-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    A letter addressed to one person, or more, but published (as for example in a newspaper) for the public to read.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how open letter appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. For months, Dati warned she would refuse to stand aside. Now she has stunned the political class with an open letter to Fillon in Le Monde, a scathing character assassination accusing him of the "lone ambition" of a disillusioned political elite, of doing politics in a way that "never favoured women" and stopping ethnic-minority candidates from progressin…
  2. More than 60 rail supply business leaders signed an open letter to Rishi Sunak on May 9 urging him to bring forward the bill which would formally establish GBR.

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

How do you spell "open letter"?
"open letter" is spelled O-P-E-N- -L-E-T-T-E-R.
What does "open letter" mean?
As a noun, "open letter" means: A letter addressed to one person, or more, but published (as for example in a newspaper) for the public to read.
What language does "open letter" come from?
"open letter" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list