red card

noun

"red-card" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“red card” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A card displayed by the referee when a player is sent off for a serious infringement of the rules.

Corpus desk

Index EN-red-card · red card · English

red card · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "R" 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 red card
PropertyValue
Headwordred card
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “red card” in English

red cardranks 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

red card is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

red card doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is red card, spelled R-E-D- -C-A-R-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    A card displayed by the referee when a player is sent off for a serious infringement of the rules.
  2. 2
    Any official instructions to vacate an area.
  3. 3
    A card indicating a firefighter's qualifications and specialties.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. In the 1994 FIFA World Cup, Argentine player Diego Maradona was given a red card for striking a US player Tab Ramos.
  2. An off the ball incident led to N'Zogbia confronting Wilshere before leaning his head into the Englishman and giving referee Lee Probert no choice but to show the red card.

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 "red card"?
"red card" is spelled R-E-D- -C-A-R-D.
What does "red card" mean?
As a noun, "red card" means: A card displayed by the referee when a player is sent off for a serious infringement of the rules.
What language does "red card" come from?
"red card" 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