admonish
/ədˈmɒn.ɪʃ/
"admonish" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“admonish” is an uncommon English word, ranked #67,203 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #67,203
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To inform or notify of a fault; to rebuke in a serious tone; to tell off.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | admonish |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ədˈmɒn.ɪʃ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #67,203 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “admonish” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for admonish is 8 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ədˈmɒn.ɪʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #67,203 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for admonish, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English admonesten, admonissen, from Old French amonester (modern French admonester), from an unattested Late Latin or Vulgar Latin *admonestrāre, from Latin admoneō (“remind, warn”), from ad + moneō (“warn, advise”). See premonition. The correct English form is admonish, spelled A-D-M-O-N-I-S-H.
Definition
- 1To inform or notify of a fault; to rebuke in a serious tone; to tell off.
- 2To advise against wrongdoing; to caution; to warn against danger or an offense.
- 3To instruct or direct.
Etymology
From Middle English admonesten, admonissen, from Old French amonester (modern French admonester), from an unattested Late Latin or Vulgar Latin *admonestrāre, from Latin admoneō (“remind, warn”), from ad + moneō (“warn, advise”). See premonition.
This word in other languages
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 “admonish”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-D-M-O-N-I-S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ədˈmɒn.ɪʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.