tell-you-what
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "tell-you-what", 13-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tell-you-what" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "tell-you-what" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“tell you what” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a phrase — the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
Dominant Wiktionary sense: Introduces a compromise or arrangement where the interlocutor has some benefit or advantage.
Compare similar words
See how tell you what compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tell you what |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tell you what” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tell you what is 13 letters long, classified as a phrase. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for tell you what in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Ellipsis of I'll tell you what or I tell you what. The sense introducing an arrangement also corresponds to another, longer established collocation of I'll tell you what I'm gonna do or let me tell you what I'm gonna do. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is tell you what, spelled T-E-L-L- -Y-O-U- -W-H-A-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Introduces a compromise or arrangement where the interlocutor has some benefit or advantage.
- 2Synonym of I can tell you.
Etymology
Ellipsis of I'll tell you what or I tell you what. The sense introducing an arrangement also corresponds to another, longer established collocation of I'll tell you what I'm gonna do or let me tell you what I'm gonna do.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tell you what”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-E-L-L- -Y-O-U- -W-H-A-T — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: