put the moves on

verb

"put-the-moves-on" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“put the moves on” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. 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) - To make an effort to gain someone's romantic or sexual interest; to try to woo or seduce.

Corpus desk

Index EN-put-the-moves-on · put the moves on · English

put the moves on · 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.

Key facts for put the moves on
PropertyValue
Headwordput the moves on
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters16
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “put the moves on” in English

put the moves onranks 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

put the moves on is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To make an effort to gain someone's romantic or sexual interest; to try to woo or seduce.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for put the moves on, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is put the moves on, spelled P-U-T- -T-H-E- -M-O-V-E-S- -O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    To make an effort to gain someone's romantic or sexual interest; to try to woo or seduce.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how put the moves on appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Leo tried putting the moves on Dawn at the New Year's party.

Synonyms

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 the moves on"?
"put the moves on" is spelled P-U-T- -T-H-E- -M-O-V-E-S- -O-N.
What does "put the moves on" mean?
As a verb, "put the moves on" means: To make an effort to gain someone's romantic or sexual interest; to try to woo or seduce.
What language does "put the moves on" come from?
"put the moves on" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list