upfront
/ʌpˈfɹʌnt/
"upfront" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“upfront” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #15,543 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #15,543
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Honest, frank and straightforward.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | upfront |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ʌpˈfɹʌnt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #15,543 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “upfront” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for upfront is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʌpˈfɹʌnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,543 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for upfront, with forms such as "pufront", "ufpront", and "upffront". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "uproot", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is upfront, spelled U-P-F-R-O-N-T.
Definition
- 1Honest, frank and straightforward.
- 2Open, admitted, out.
- 3In a forward, leading or frontward position.
- 4Of money, paid in advance.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: pufront,ufpront,upffront,upfornt,upfrnot,upfronnt,upfrontt,upfrotn,upfrront,uppfront,uprfont
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of upfront - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “upfront”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is U-P-F-R-O-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ʌpˈfɹʌnt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “uproot” - see the side-by-side comparison. upfront vs uproot
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.