state of war

noun

"state-of-war" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“state of war” 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 May 6, 2026) - A state of armed conflict between states, irrespective of a declaration of war.

Corpus desk

Index EN-state-of-war · state of war · English

state of war · 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.

Key facts for state of war
PropertyValue
Headwordstate of war
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “state of war” sits in English frequency

state of war falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

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

Rare enough to double-check

state of war is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A state of armed conflict between states, irrespective of a declaration of war.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for state of war, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, 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 state of war, spelled S-T-A-T-E- -O-F- -W-A-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    A state of armed conflict between states, irrespective of a declaration of war.

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.

PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "state of war"?
"state of war" is spelled S-T-A-T-E- -O-F- -W-A-R.
What does "state of war" mean?
As a noun, "state of war" means: A state of armed conflict between states, irrespective of a declaration of war.
What language does "state of war" come from?
"state of war" 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.
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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list