put someone out of their misery

verb

"put-someone-out-of-their-misery" is a 26-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“put someone out of their misery” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
31
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To submit a suffering person or an animal to euthanasia.

Corpus desk

Index EN-put-someone-out-of-their · put someone out of their misery · English

put someone out of their misery · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 31 letters
  • VOW-13 13 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 put someone out of their misery
PropertyValue
Headwordput someone out of their misery
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters31
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “put someone out of their misery” in English

put someone out of their miserysits 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

put someone out of their misery is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for put someone out of their misery, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is put someone out of their misery, spelled P-U-T- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -O-U-T- -O-F- -T-H-E-I-R- -M-I-S-E-R-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    To submit a suffering person or an animal to euthanasia.
  2. 2
    To end or destroy something for the good of the individuals involved in it.
  3. 3
    To relieve somebody's anxiety by supplying information that they wanted to know.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how put someone out of their misery appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. And with some United supporters actually pleading with referee Clattenburg to put them out of their misery, one more moment of brilliance from the magical Silva found Dzeko surging into the area to finish left-footed for his second.
  2. It had been a mighty struggle, but they'd managed to put out her fires. The next time she tried to put Zevala out of its misery, it was going to damn well work. There was going to be nobody left to stop her.

Synonyms

euthaniseeuthanize

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 "put someone out of their misery"?
"put someone out of their misery" is spelled P-U-T- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -O-U-T- -O-F- -T-H-E-I-R- -M-I-S-E-R-Y.
What does "put someone out of their misery" mean?
As a verb, "put someone out of their misery" means: To submit a suffering person or an animal to euthanasia.
What language does "put someone out of their misery" come from?
"put someone out of their misery" 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