spur of the moment

noun

"spur-of-the-moment" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“spur of the moment” 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) - Impulse; short notice; a lack of planning.

Corpus desk

Index EN-spur-of-the-moment · spur of the moment · English

spur of the moment · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 18 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.

Key facts for spur of the moment
PropertyValue
Headwordspur of the moment
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters18
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “spur of the moment” in English

spur of the momentranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

spur of the moment is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Impulse; short notice; a lack of planning.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for spur of the moment, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is spur of the moment, spelled S-P-U-R- -O-F- -T-H-E- -M-O-M-E-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Impulse; short notice; a lack of planning.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how spur of the moment appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. We decided to vacation in Las Vegas on the spur of the moment.
  2. 1852 January 26, Henry David Thoreau Obey the spur of the moment. These accumulated it is that make the impulse and the impetus of the life of genius.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "spur of the moment"?
"spur of the moment" is spelled S-P-U-R- -O-F- -T-H-E- -M-O-M-E-N-T.
What does "spur of the moment" mean?
As a noun, "spur of the moment" means: Impulse; short notice; a lack of planning.
What language does "spur of the moment" come from?
"spur of the moment" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list