standing joke

noun

"standing-joke" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“standing joke” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A customary laughing matter amongst a group of people.

Corpus desk

Index EN-standing-joke · standing joke · English

standing joke · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 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.

Key facts for standing joke
PropertyValue
Headwordstanding joke
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “standing joke” in English

standing jokeranks 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

standing joke is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A customary laughing matter amongst a group of people.".

Zero misspellings are on record for standing joke in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is standing joke, spelled S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G- -J-O-K-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    A customary laughing matter amongst a group of people.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. The two aunts laughed heartily, too, for Gabriel's solicitude was a standing joke with them.

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 "standing joke"?
"standing joke" is spelled S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G- -J-O-K-E.
What does "standing joke" mean?
As a noun, "standing joke" means: A customary laughing matter amongst a group of people.
What language does "standing joke" come from?
"standing joke" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list