pain in the neck
"pain-in-the-neck" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pain in the neck” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Someone or something which is annoying, irritating or inconvenient.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pain-in-the-neck · pain in the neck · English
pain in the neck · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" 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 | pain in the neck |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pain in the neck” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pain in the neck is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Someone or something which is annoying, irritating or inconvenient.".
pain in the neck doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested in the 1920s. The correct English form is pain in the neck, spelled P-A-I-N- -I-N- -T-H-E- -N-E-C-K.
Definition
- 1Someone or something which is annoying, irritating or inconvenient.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pain in the neck appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Got to know McTodd, found he wasn’t coming to the castle, and came down instead of him, same as me. Only he got there first, damn him! Wouldn’t that give you a pain in the neck!”
OK, call me a hypersensitive liberal, if you want. It wouldn’t be the first time. I can be a pain in the neck about racial, ethnic and religious bias sometimes, but I think it’s better to be hypersensitive than insensitive.
Etymology
First attested in the 1920s.
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.