right of way
"right-of-way" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“right of way” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The right to proceed first in traffic, on land, on water or in the air. Also in metaphorical senses.
Corpus desk
Index EN-right-of-way · right of way · English
right of way · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | right of way |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “right of way” in English
Rare enough to double-check
right of way is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 7 senses are on record.
right of way doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is right of way, spelled R-I-G-H-T- -O-F- -W-A-Y.
Definition
- 1The right to proceed first in traffic, on land, on water or in the air. Also in metaphorical senses.
- 2A legal right of passage over another's land or pathways.
- 3A strip of land or alignment where portions of a roadway, railway, power line, or other utilities and their associated structures and facilities is located or passes acquired through eminent domain or expropriation.
- 4Land on which a right of way exists.
- 5The area modified for passage of a railway; often specifically the railbed and tracks.
- 6The priority granted to the first person to properly execute an attack.
- 7The strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how right of way appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Even when you have the right of way, you must take action to avoid a collision if another boat fails to give way.
2000, "Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000) (c.37)" (UK), II.48(4), “restricted byway” means a highway over which the public have restricted byway rights, with or without a right to drive animals of any description along the highway, but no other rights of way.
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.