shoot the messenger
Detailed reference entry for the English word "shoot-the-messenger", 19-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "shoot-the-messenger" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "shoot-the-messenger" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“shoot the messenger” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To blame a problem on whoever reported it; to hold somebody accountable for a problem because they brought attention to it.
Compare similar words
See how shoot the messenger compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shoot the messenger |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “shoot the messenger” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shoot the messenger is 19 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To blame a problem on whoever reported it; to hold somebody accountable for a problem because they brought attention to it.".
No misspelling variants are generated for shoot the messenger in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
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. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is shoot the messenger, spelled S-H-O-O-T- -T-H-E- -M-E-S-S-E-N-G-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To blame a problem on whoever reported it; to hold somebody accountable for a problem because they brought attention to it.
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “shoot the messenger, English word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/en/word/shoot-the-messenger
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Using “shoot the messenger”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-H-O-O-T- -T-H-E- -M-E-S-S-E-N-G-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: