sleeping policeman
"sleeping-policeman" is a 17-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sleeping policeman” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 18
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A speed bump.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sleeping-policeman · sleeping policeman · English
sleeping policeman · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 18 letters
- VOW-7 7 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sleeping policeman |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sleeping policeman” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sleeping policeman is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A speed bump.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for sleeping policeman in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, 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 sleeping policeman, spelled S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G- -P-O-L-I-C-E-M-A-N.
Definition
- 1A speed bump.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how sleeping policeman appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We don't care much to figure out terms like "brolly" (umbrella) and "sleeping policeman" (speed bump).
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.