son of a gun
"son-of-a-gun" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“son of a gun” 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) - son of a bitch
Corpus desk
Index EN-son-of-a-gun · son of a gun · English
son of a gun · 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 "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 | son of a gun |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “son of a gun” in English
Rare enough to double-check
son of a gun is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for son of a gun in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. 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.
Etymologically, the entry records: Euphemistic variant of son of a bitch. There are folk etymologies suggesting nautical origins, such as a reference to the disputed parentage of a child born aboard a ship (between the guns), or a child fathered by a soldier (also referred to as a "gun"). Ho… The correct English form is son of a gun, spelled S-O-N- -O-F- -A- -G-U-N.
Definition
- 1son of a bitch
- 2Used encouragingly or to compliment.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how son of a gun appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That son of a gun stole my wallet!
A plaugue tauke dee, dou damn’d Shon of a Gun, de Deevil carry dee away alive for me; […]
Etymology
Euphemistic variant of son of a bitch. There are folk etymologies suggesting nautical origins, such as a reference to the disputed parentage of a child born aboard a ship (between the guns), or a child fathered by a soldier (also referred to as a "gun"). However, these etymologies are not supported by evidence.
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.