truth be told
"truth-be-told" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“truth be told” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Used when admitting something one might otherwise lie about, e.g. to keep up appearances or be polite.
Corpus desk
Index EN-truth-be-told · truth be told · English
truth be told · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | truth be told |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “truth be told” in English
Rare enough to double-check
truth be told is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Used when admitting something one might otherwise lie about, e.g. to keep up appearances or be polite.".
truth be told doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Ellipsis of if the truth should be told. The correct English form is truth be told, spelled T-R-U-T-H- -B-E- -T-O-L-D.
Definition
- 1Used when admitting something one might otherwise lie about, e.g. to keep up appearances or be polite.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how truth be told appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I'm not sure if I can do this, truth be told.
Actually, truth be told, I just don't like you.
Etymology
Ellipsis of if the truth should be told.
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.