strike someone when they are down
"strike-someone-when-they-are-down" is a 28-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“strike someone when they are down” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 33
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Synonym of kick someone when they are down (“make things worse for someone in a difficult position”).
Corpus desk
Index EN-strike-someone-when-they · strike someone when they are down · English
strike someone when they are down · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 33 letters
- VOW-12 12 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | strike someone when they are down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 33 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “strike someone when they are down” in English
Rare enough to double-check
strike someone when they are down is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Synonym of kick someone when they are down (“make things worse for someone in a difficult position”).".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for strike someone when they are down, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is strike someone when they are down, spelled S-T-R-I-K-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -W-H-E-N- -T-H-E-Y- -A-R-E- -D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1Synonym of kick someone when they are down (“make things worse for someone in a difficult position”).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how strike someone when they are down appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
but he was already so doubly overthrown by two Learned Opposers, that it seem'd unhandsome and ignoble to strike a man when he was down; his Circumstances making him rather an Object of Pity than Victory.
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.