slough of despond
/ˈslaʊ əv ˈdɛspɒnd/
"slough-of-despond" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“slough of despond” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A dreary bog or marsh.
Corpus desk
Index EN-slough-of-despond · slough of despond · English
slough of despond · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | slough of despond |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈslaʊ əv ˈdɛspɒnd/ |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “slough of despond” in English
Rare enough to double-check
slough of despond is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈslaʊ əv ˈdɛspɒnd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for slough of despond, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the name of a bog in The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by English writer and preacher John Bunyan (1628–1688). The correct English form is slough of despond, spelled S-L-O-U-G-H- -O-F- -D-E-S-P-O-N-D.
Definition
- 1A dreary bog or marsh.
- 2A state of disheartening hopelessness; pit of despair.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how slough of despond appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The road is winding, and consists of a succession of short, steep descents, diversified by occasional sloughs, which might well be called "sloughs of despond," into one of which Manuel was thrown rather unceremoniously, by the bursting of his saddle-girths at the top of one of these short hills, by which means he took a flight over the head of his beast,…
The road was scarcely passable; there were no longer cheerful farms and clearings, but the dark pine forest, and the rank swamp, crossed by those terrific corduroy paths (my bones ache at the mere recollection!) and deep holes and pools of rotted vegetable matter, mixed with water, black, bottomless sloughs of despond! The very horses paused on the brink…
Etymology
From the name of a bog in The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by English writer and preacher John Bunyan (1628–1688).
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.