strike out
"strike-out" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“strike out” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To lash out; to strike or hit at someone or something, particularly something in arm's length of the striker and at or near the level of the striker's head.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | strike out |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “strike out” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for strike out is 10 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
strike out has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. 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 explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is strike out, spelled S-T-R-I-K-E- -O-U-T.
Definition
- 1To lash out; to strike or hit at someone or something, particularly something in arm's length of the striker and at or near the level of the striker's head.
- 2To strongly criticize or make a verbal attack, particularly as a response to previous criticism or provocation.
- 3To draw a line through some text such as a printed or written sentence, with the purpose of deleting that text from the rest of the document.
- 4to treat something as settled
- 5Of a batter, to be retired after three strikes (missed swings, as opposed to any other way of becoming "out"); of a pitcher, to cause this to happen to the batter.
- 6To fail; to be refused a request or to have a proposal not be accepted, in particular a request for a (hopefully romantic) date.
- 7To begin to make one's way.
Synonyms
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “strike out”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-T-R-I-K-E- -O-U-T - 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.