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112

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

3 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "112", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "112" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "112" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

112 is aEnglishname. It means: The telephone number for emergency services on all GSM cell phones and in the EU, Russia, United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Ukraine, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rw...

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Key facts for 112
PropertyValue
Headword112
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechName
Letters3
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

112 is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for 112 is 3 letters long, classified as aname. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for 112 in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Selected by the European Union as the 3-digit number fastest to dial on cellular and rotary phones without the likelihood of accidental dialing caused by hanging up a landline telephone, sometimes interpreted by phone networks as a 1. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is 112, spelled 1-1-2, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    The telephone number for emergency services on all GSM cell phones and in the EU, Russia, United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Ukraine, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome, the Seychelles, Uganda, East Timor, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, North Macedonia, Vatican City, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Saint Vincent.
  2. 2
    The telephone number for ambulance services in Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bhutan, Burundi, and Burkina Faso.
  3. 3
    The telephone number for law enforcement in South Korea, Norway, Colombia, Serbia, Lebanon, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, and Mauritius.
  4. 4
    The telephone number for firefighting assistance in Equatorial Guinea and Nauru.

Etymology

Selected by the European Union as the 3-digit number fastest to dial on cellular and rotary phones without the likelihood of accidental dialing caused by hanging up a landline telephone, sometimes interpreted by phone networks as a 1.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "112"?
"112" is spelled 1-1-2.
What does "112" mean?
As a name, "112" means: The telephone number for emergency services on all GSM cell phones and in the EU, Russia, United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Ukraine, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rw...
What is the origin of the word "112"?
Selected by the European Union as the 3-digit number fastest to dial on cellular and rotary phones without the likelihood of accidental dialing caused by hanging up a landline telephone, sometimes interpreted by phone networks as a 1. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter 1 in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.