thorn-in-the-flesh
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
18 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "thorn-in-the-flesh", 18-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 "thorn-in-the-flesh" 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 "thorn-in-the-flesh" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
thorn in the flesh is aEnglishnoun. It means: A persistent difficulty or something very annoying that will not go away.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | thorn in the flesh |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for thorn in the flesh is 18 letters long, classified as anoun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A persistent difficulty or something very annoying that will not go away.".
No misspelling variants are generated for thorn in the flesh 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: With reference to the Bible 2nd Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 7. 2 Corinthians 12.7 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 thorn in the flesh, spelled T-H-O-R-N- -I-N- -T-H-E- -F-L-E-S-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A persistent difficulty or something very annoying that will not go away.
Etymology
With reference to the Bible 2nd Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 7. 2 Corinthians 12.7
Synonyms
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: