work off
"work-off" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“work off” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To lose (weight) by doing physical work; to burn off the calories gained from eating something.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | work off |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “work off” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
work off is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
work off doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is work off, spelled W-O-R-K- -O-F-F.
Definition
- 1To lose (weight) by doing physical work; to burn off the calories gained from eating something.
- 2To end (a debt) by doing labor for the person owed money.
- 3To produce (printed matter etc.) by some process of work.
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
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Using “work off”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-O-R-K- -O-F-F - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.