truth to tell
"truth-to-tell" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“truth to tell” 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) - Actually; frankly; as a matter of fact.
Corpus desk
Index EN-truth-to-tell · truth to tell · English
truth to tell · 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 to tell |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “truth to tell” in English
Rare enough to double-check
truth to tell is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Actually; frankly; as a matter of fact.".
Zero misspellings are on record for truth to tell in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is truth to tell, spelled T-R-U-T-H- -T-O- -T-E-L-L.
Definition
- 1Actually; frankly; as a matter of fact.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how truth to tell appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time.
Haggerty had his trouble for nothing. There was no clue whatever in Lord Monckton's suite. . . . Truth to tell, Haggerty had not expected to find anything.
Synonyms
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.