pour oil on troubled waters
"pour-oil-on-troubled-waters" is a 23-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pour oil on troubled waters” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 27
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To calm, appease or quiet a person or situation.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pour oil on troubled waters |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 27 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pour oil on troubled waters” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
pour oil on troubled waters is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To calm, appease or quiet a person or situation.".
pour oil on troubled waters doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the ancient practice of pouring oil on the seawaves in order to calm them. The correct English form is pour oil on troubled waters, spelled P-O-U-R- -O-I-L- -O-N- -T-R-O-U-B-L-E-D- -W-A-T-E-R-S.
Definition
- 1To calm, appease or quiet a person or situation.
Etymology
From the ancient practice of pouring oil on the seawaves in order to calm them.
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
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Using “pour oil on troubled waters”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-O-U-R- -O-I-L- -O-N- -T-R-O-U-B-L-E-D- -W-A-T-E-R-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.