up the spout
"up-the-spout" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“up the spout” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a prep_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) - Broken; not functional or workable; kaput.
Corpus desk
Index EN-up-the-spout · up the spout · English
up the spout · 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 "U" 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 | up the spout |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Prep_phrase |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “up the spout” in English
Rare enough to double-check
up the spout is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
up the spout doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is up the spout, spelled U-P- -T-H-E- -S-P-O-U-T.
Definition
- 1Broken; not functional or workable; kaput.
- 2In the chamber, having an ammunition round in a weapon's chamber.
- 3Pregnant.
- 4At the pawnbroker's shop (in allusion to the spout up which the pawnbroker sent the ticketed articles).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how up the spout appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I think the left speaker is up the spout.
That idea of yours for using the church hall seems to have gone up the spout.
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.