pull up stakes

verb

"pull-up-stakes" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“pull up stakes” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.

Corpus desk

Index EN-pull-up-stakes · pull up stakes · English

pull up stakes · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 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.

Key facts for pull up stakes
PropertyValue
Headwordpull up stakes
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “pull up stakes” in English

pull up stakesranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

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

Rare enough to double-check

pull up stakes is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.".

Zero misspellings are on record for pull up stakes in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is pull up stakes, spelled P-U-L-L- -U-P- -S-T-A-K-E-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    To prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. They just pulled up stakes and left.
  2. From the start of their strange and embattled marriage, they established a pattern of suddenly pulling up stakes with little notice to family members or neighbors.

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 "pull up stakes"?
"pull up stakes" is spelled P-U-L-L- -U-P- -S-T-A-K-E-S.
What does "pull up stakes" mean?
As a verb, "pull up stakes" means: To prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.
What language does "pull up stakes" come from?
"pull up stakes" 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