Trojan horse

noun

"trojan-horse" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Trojan horse” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. 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) - A subversive person or device placed within the ranks of the enemy.

Corpus desk

Index EN-trojan-horse · Trojan horse · English

Trojan horse · 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.

Key facts for Trojan horse
PropertyValue
HeadwordTrojan horse
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “Trojan horse” in English

Trojan horsefalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

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

Rare enough to double-check

Trojan horse is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for Trojan horse in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is Trojan horse, spelled T-R-O-J-A-N- -H-O-R-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    A subversive person or device placed within the ranks of the enemy.
  2. 2
    A malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software.
  3. 3
    A seemingly favorable offer designed to trick customers into making exorbitant payments.
  4. 4
    A person, organization, social movement, piece of legislation, or ideology with a negative agenda or evil intentions under the guise of positive values or good intentions.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Worse than what could be observed about the program was the fear that it might be a Trojan horse program -- apparently innocent, but carrying a string of code instructing the computer to carry out a specific damaging instruction at some later time.
  2. Russia thinks of an atomic authority as a Trojan horse to get behind the iron curtain and impair her defense, and there is some reason historically for this view.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Trojan horse"?
"Trojan horse" is spelled T-R-O-J-A-N- -H-O-R-S-E.
What does "Trojan horse" mean?
As a noun, "Trojan horse" means: A subversive person or device placed within the ranks of the enemy.
What language does "Trojan horse" come from?
"Trojan horse" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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