actor
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "actor", 5-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 "actor" 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 "actor" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
actor is aEnglishnoun. It means: Someone who institutes a legal suit; a plaintiff or complainant. Pronounced /ˈak.tə(ɹ)/. It ranks #2,240 in English word frequency. Often confused with ATO and ATR.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | actor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈak.tə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,240 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for actor is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈak.tə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,240 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for actor, with forms such as "acctor", "acotr", and "actorr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ATO", "ATR", "acts", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Latin āctus Proto-Indo-European *-tōr Proto-Italic *-tōr Latin -tor Latin āctorbor. Middle English actour English actor Inherited from Middle English actour, … 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 actor, spelled A-C-T-O-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Someone who institutes a legal suit; a plaintiff or complainant.
- 2Someone acting on behalf of someone else; a guardian.
- 3Someone or something that takes part in some action; a doer, an agent.
- 4A person who acts a part in a theatrical play or (later) in film or television; a dramatic performer.
- 5An advocate or proctor in civil courts or causes.
- 6The subject performing the action of a verb.
- 7The entity that performs a role (in use case analysis).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Latin āctus Proto-Indo-European *-tōr Proto-Italic *-tōr Latin -tor Latin āctorbor. Middle English actour English actor Inherited from Middle English actour, from Anglo-Norman actor, Middle French actor, and their source, Latin āctor (“doer”), from agō (“to do”). Equivalent to act + -or. Cognate with Ancient Greek ἄκτωρ (áktōr, “leader”), from ἄγω (ágō, “lead, carry, convey, bring”).
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acctor,acotr,actorr,actro,acttor,atcor,cator
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for actor
Misspelling Variants of "actor"
Frequency rank: #2,240 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: