police work
"police-work" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“police work” 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) - Work performed by police; the investigation of criminal activities.
Corpus desk
Index EN-police-work · police work · English
police work · 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 "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 | police work |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “police work” in English
Rare enough to double-check
police work is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Work performed by police; the investigation of criminal activities.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for police work, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From police + work. The correct English form is police work, spelled P-O-L-I-C-E- -W-O-R-K.
Definition
- 1Work performed by police; the investigation of criminal activities.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how police work appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The complement will consist of 290 persons, and these cruisers should prove valuable additions to our service, especially in the line of police-work—the peace time duty of most of our ships not assigned for manœuvres.
Many who are unfamiliar with real police work little realize the extent to which police science has developed.
Etymology
From police + work.
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.