speak ill of
"speak-ill-of" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“speak ill of” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To vilify; to defame; to criticize.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | speak ill of |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “speak ill of” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
speak ill of is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To vilify; to defame; to criticize.".
Zero misspellings are on record for speak ill of in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is speak ill of, spelled S-P-E-A-K- -I-L-L- -O-F.
Definition
- 1To vilify; to defame; to criticize.
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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Using “speak ill of”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-P-E-A-K- -I-L-L- -O-F - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.