to be honest
"to-be-honest" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“to be honest” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Frankly, honestly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-to-be-honest · to be honest · English
to be honest · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | to be honest |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “to be honest” in English
Rare enough to double-check
to be honest is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aphrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for to be honest in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is to be honest, spelled T-O- -B-E- -H-O-N-E-S-T.
Definition
- 1Frankly, honestly.
- 2Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see to, be, honest.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how to be honest appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I don't mind, to be honest.
To be honest, he has a bit of a body odor problem, but we haven't yet had an opportunity to tell him gently and privately.
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.