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adventure

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

Letters

9 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "adventure", 9-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 "adventure" 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 "adventure" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

adventure is aEnglishnoun. It means: A feeling of desire for new and exciting things. Pronounced /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/. It ranks #3,205 in English word frequency. Often confused with adventures and adventurer.

Key facts for adventure
PropertyValue
Headwordadventure
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/
Letters9
Frequency rank#3,205
Misspellings tracked13
Confusable pairs2
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of adventure in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for adventure is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,205 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 Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 13 documented wrong-spelling variants for adventure, with forms such as "addventure", "adevnture", and "advennture". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "adventures", "adventurer", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Vulgar Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *gʷm̥yéti Proto-Italic *gʷənjō Vulgar Latin veniō Vulgar Latin adveniō Vulgar Latin advent… 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 adventure, spelled A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A feeling of desire for new and exciting things.
  2. 2
    A remarkable occurrence; a striking event.
  3. 3
    A daring feat; a bold undertaking, in which dangers are likely to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; the encountering of risks.
  4. 4
    A mercantile or speculative enterprise of hazard; a venture; a shipment by a merchant on his own account.
  5. 5
    A text adventure or an adventure game.
  6. 6
    That which happens by chance; hazard; hap.
  7. 7
    Chance of danger or loss.
  8. 8
    Risk; danger; peril.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Vulgar Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *gʷm̥yéti Proto-Italic *gʷənjō Vulgar Latin veniō Vulgar Latin adveniō Vulgar Latin adventūrus Vulgar Latin *adventūra Old French aventurebor. Middle English aventure English adventure From Middle English aventure, aunter, anter, from Old French aventure, from Vulgar Latin *adventūra, from Latin adventūrus (“about to arrive, (Vulgar Latin) about to happen”), future active participle of adveniō (“to arrive”), which in the Romance languages took the sense of "to happen, befall" (see also advene). By surface analysis, advent + -ure. Compare Scots adventur, Swedish äventyr, German Abenteuer.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: addventure,adevnture,advennture,adventrue,adventture,adventuer,adventurre,advenutre,advetnure,advneture,advventure,avdenture,daventure

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for adventure

Misspelling Variants of "adventure"

addventure10adevnture9advennture10adventrue9adventture10adventuer9adventurre10advenutre9
Misspelling Variants of "adventure"

Frequency rank: #3,205 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "adventure"?
"adventure" is spelled A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/.
What does "adventure" mean?
As a noun, "adventure" means: A feeling of desire for new and exciting things.
What words are commonly confused with "adventure"?
"adventure" is commonly confused with "adventures", "adventurer". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "adventure"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "adventure" is /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "adventure"?
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Vulgar Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *gʷm̥yéti Proto-Italic *gʷənjō Vulgar Latin veniō Vulgar Latin adveniō Vulgar La... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter A 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.