short-legged

adj

"short-legged" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“short-legged” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. 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) - Having short legs, particularly in proportion to one's body.

Corpus desk

Index EN-short-legged · short-legged · English

short-legged · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" 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 short-legged
PropertyValue
Headwordshort-legged
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “short-legged” in English

short-leggedranks 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

short-legged is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having short legs, particularly in proportion to one's body.".

short-legged has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Etymologically, the entry records: From short + legged. The correct English form is short-legged, spelled S-H-O-R-T---L-E-G-G-E-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    Having short legs, particularly in proportion to one's body.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. However, small, deep-bodied, shortlegged cattle have been known in Ireland since Celtic times.
  2. The two dogs were beagles, shortlegged and frantic, leaping in and out of the chest-high fall of snow, or plowing their noses through it and furrowing snow up and past their ears, their tails spinning, then looking up with white brows and whiskers, gnomic and hoary-faced as little old men.

Etymology

From short + legged.

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 "short-legged"?
"short-legged" is spelled S-H-O-R-T---L-E-G-G-E-D.
What does "short-legged" mean?
As an adjective, "short-legged" means: Having short legs, particularly in proportion to one's body.
What is the origin of the word "short-legged"?
From short + legged. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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