testilying

noun

"testilying" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“testilying” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The act of a police officer giving false testimony (perjury).

Corpus desk

Index EN-testilying · testilying · English

testilying · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-4 4 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.

Key facts for testilying
PropertyValue
Headwordtestilying
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “testilying” in English

testilyingranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

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

Rare enough to double-check

testilying is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act of a police officer giving false testimony (perjury).".

No generated misspelling entries exist for testilying in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: Blend of testifying + lying. Coined by New York City police officers, appearing in print in 1994 in the report of the Mollen Commission (see 1994 quotation). The correct English form is testilying, spelled T-E-S-T-I-L-Y-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    The act of a police officer giving false testimony (perjury).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how testilying appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Several officers also told us that the practice of police falsification in connection with such arrests is so common in certain precincts that it has spawned its own word: “testilying.“
  2. “Testilying,” police fabricating evidence or lying in court, is a type of police corruption.

Etymology

Blend of testifying + lying. Coined by New York City police officers, appearing in print in 1994 in the report of the Mollen Commission (see 1994 quotation).

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

How do you spell "testilying"?
"testilying" is spelled T-E-S-T-I-L-Y-I-N-G.
What does "testilying" mean?
As a noun, "testilying" means: The act of a police officer giving false testimony (perjury).
What is the origin of the word "testilying"?
Blend of testifying + lying. Coined by New York City police officers, appearing in print in 1994 in the report of the Mollen Commission (see 1994 quotation). See the full etymology section above for more details.
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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list