adoption
/əˈdɑp.ʃən/
"adoption" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“adoption” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,384 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,384
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of adopting.
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 | adoption |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈdɑp.ʃən/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #5,384 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “adoption” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for adoption is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈdɑp.ʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,384 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for adoption, with forms such as "addoption", "adopiton", and "adopption". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "adoptive", "adoration", "adsorption", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French adoption, from Latin adoptio, allied to adoptare (“to adopt”). Equivalent to adopt + -ion. The correct English form is adoption, spelled A-D-O-P-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1The act of adopting.
- 2The state of being adopted; the acceptance of a child of other parents as if they were one's own child.
- 3An admission to an institution, for example a hospital, clinic, mental asylum.
- 4The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance.
- 5The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance.
- 6The transfer from an old system to another (usually better) system.
- 7An act of divine grace by which the redeemed in Christ are admitted to the privileges of the sons of God.
- 8Ten consecutive wins against an opponent.
Etymology
Borrowed from French adoption, from Latin adoptio, allied to adoptare (“to adopt”). Equivalent to adopt + -ion.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: addoption,adopiton,adopption,adopsion,adoptino,adoptionn,adoptoin,adopttion,adotpion,adpotion,aodption,daoption
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of adoption - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “adoption”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-D-O-P-T-I-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈdɑp.ʃən/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “adoptive” - see the side-by-side comparison. adoption vs adoptive
- 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.