red herring
"red-herring" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“red herring” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A herring that is cured in smoke and brine strong enough to turn the flesh red; a typeof kipper.
Corpus desk
Index EN-red-herring · red herring · English
red herring · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | red herring |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “red herring” in English
Rare enough to double-check
red herring is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for red herring, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: (figurative): One possible origin of the idiom was that red herring were used to train dogs to track scents. This was true, but the modern meaning of a false trail may have been popularized in a news story by English journalist William Cobbett, c. 1805, in … The correct English form is red herring, spelled R-E-D- -H-E-R-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1A herring that is cured in smoke and brine strong enough to turn the flesh red; a typeof kipper.
- 2A clue, information, argument, etc. that is or is intended to be misleading, diverting attention from the real answer or issue.
- 3A red herring prospectus.
- 4A soldier.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how red herring appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before.
‘Mamma,’ said Rosamond, ‘when Fred comes down I wish you would not let him have red herrings. I cannot bear the smell of them all over the house at this hour of the morning.’
Etymology
(figurative): One possible origin of the idiom was that red herring were used to train dogs to track scents. This was true, but the modern meaning of a false trail may have been popularized in a news story by English journalist William Cobbett, c. 1805, in which he claimed that as a boy he used a red herring (a cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a trail; the story served as an extended metaphor for the London press, which had earned Cobbett's ire by publishing false news accounts regarding Napoleon. The OED has another possible earlier origin in the legacy of clergyman Jasper Mayne in 1672 when he misled a servant by leaving him "Somewhat that would make him Drink after his Death" in a large trunk. When the trunk was opened, the contents were found to be red herring. (soldier): An allusion to soldiers' red uniforms; soldier is, reciprocally, a slang term for the fish.
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.