spare the rod and spoil the child
Detailed reference entry for the English word "spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child", 33-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 "spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child" 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 "spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child" 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
“spare the rod and spoil the child” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a proverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 33
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — If one does not discipline a child, it will never learn obedience and good manners.
Compare similar words
See how spare the rod and spoil the child compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spare the rod and spoil the child |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proverb |
| Letters | 33 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “spare the rod and spoil the child” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for spare the rod and spoil the child is 33 letters long, classified as a proverb. 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: "If one does not discipline a child, it will never learn obedience and good manners.".
No misspelling variants are generated for spare the rod and spoil the child 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.
Etymologically, the entry records: Commonly claimed to have come from the King James Version of the Bible, Book of Proverbs, 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Due to the associated “spoil" concept which is not in the Bible, it mor… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is spare the rod and spoil the child, spelled S-P-A-R-E- -T-H-E- -R-O-D- -A-N-D- -S-P-O-I-L- -T-H-E- -C-H-I-L-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1If one does not discipline a child, it will never learn obedience and good manners.
Etymology
Commonly claimed to have come from the King James Version of the Bible, Book of Proverbs, 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Due to the associated “spoil" concept which is not in the Bible, it more likely came from a 17th-century poem by Samuel Butler called Hudibras. In the poem, a love affair is likened to a child, and spanking is mockingly commended as a way to make the love grow stronger. The actual verse reads: : What medicine else can cure the fits Of lovers when they lose their wits? Love is a boy by poets styled Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
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.
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Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “spare the rod and spoil the child, 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/spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child
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Using “spare the rod and spoil the child”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-A-R-E- -T-H-E- -R-O-D- -A-N-D- -S-P-O-I-L- -T-H-E- -C-H-I-L-D - 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: