over my dead body

/oʊ.vɚ maɪ dɛd bɑ.di/

//oʊ.vɚ maɪ dɛd bɑ.di// prep_phrase

"over-my-dead-body" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“over my dead body” 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
17
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Under no circumstances; absolutely not.

Corpus desk

Index EN-over-my-dead-body · over my dead body · English

over my dead body · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 17 letters
  • VOW-7 7 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 over my dead body
PropertyValue
Headwordover my dead body
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechPrep_phrase
IPA/oʊ.vɚ maɪ dɛd bɑ.di/
Letters17
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “over my dead body” in English

over my dead bodysits 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

over my dead body is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase, transcribed /oʊ.vɚ maɪ dɛd bɑ.di/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Under no circumstances; absolutely not.".

over my dead body has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, 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 over my dead body, spelled O-V-E-R- -M-Y- -D-E-A-D- -B-O-D-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Under no circumstances; absolutely not.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how over my dead body appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. "Can I get a new sports car?" "Over my dead body!"
  2. “An’ now I hear you’re sendin’ our flagship Pastores out at four o’clock this afternoon with another cock-eyed cross between a giraffe an’ a Gila monster— / “By my soul, never!” yells th’ G.P.A., jumpin’ up like a bumb has gone off under him. “If the Pastores sails with that red-skirted gorilless aboard, it’ll be over my dead body!”

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 "over my dead body"?
"over my dead body" is spelled O-V-E-R- -M-Y- -D-E-A-D- -B-O-D-Y. The IPA pronunciation is /oʊ.vɚ maɪ dɛd bɑ.di/.
What does "over my dead body" mean?
As a prep_phrase, "over my dead body" means: Under no circumstances; absolutely not.
How do you pronounce "over my dead body"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "over my dead body" is /oʊ.vɚ maɪ dɛd bɑ.di/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "over my dead body" come from?
"over my dead body" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list