take the plunge
"take-the-plunge" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“take the plunge” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To begin any major commitment.
Corpus desk
Index EN-take-the-plunge · take the plunge · English
take the plunge · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" 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 | take the plunge |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “take the plunge” in English
Rare enough to double-check
take the plunge is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
take the plunge has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology 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 take the plunge, spelled T-A-K-E- -T-H-E- -P-L-U-N-G-E.
Definition
- 1To begin any major commitment.
- 2To get engaged to be married.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how take the plunge appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
And as scientists studying the subject, we will have to conclude that she will take the plunge only if she suffers from overconfidence bias or is innately risk-loving.
Patrick: Joel and Brinique just went public with matching bracelets. Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Oh, he, uh, he took the plunge? Ahh, I know what that's like.
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.