red in the face
"red-in-the-face" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“red in the face” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - embarrassed
Corpus desk
Index EN-red-in-the-face · red in the face · English
red in the face · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 in the face |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “red in the face” in English
Rare enough to double-check
red in the face is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
red in the face has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: A reference to one's face flushing from embarrassment. The correct English form is red in the face, spelled R-E-D- -I-N- -T-H-E- -F-A-C-E.
Definition
- 1embarrassed
- 2excited, outraged
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how red in the face appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
On air on Tuesday, [Tucker] Carlson claimed Democrats had shown “hysteria, overstatement, crazed hyperbole, red-in-the-face anger” over his use of the January 6 footage. It was “not outrage”, he said, but “fear. It’s panic.”
Etymology
A reference to one's face flushing from embarrassment.
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.