aim
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "aim", 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 "aim" 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 "aim" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
aim is aEnglishnoun. It means: The pointing of a weapon, as a gun, a dart, or an arrow, or object, in the line of direction with the object intended to be struck; the line of fire; the direction of anything, such as a spear, a b... Pronounced /eɪm/. It ranks #2,927 in English word frequency. Often confused with as and at.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | aim |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /eɪm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2,927 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for aim is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /eɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,927 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for aim in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "as", "at", "an", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is from Middle English amen, aimen, eimen (“to guess at, to estimate, to aim”), borrowed from Old French esmer, aesmer, asmer, from Latin ad- plus aestimare (“to estimate”), the compound perhaps being originally formed in Medieval Latin (adaestimar… 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 aim, spelled A-I-M, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The pointing of a weapon, as a gun, a dart, or an arrow, or object, in the line of direction with the object intended to be struck; the line of fire; the direction of anything, such as a spear, a blow, a discourse, a remark, towards a particular point or object, with a view to strike or affect it.
- 2The point intended to be hit, or object intended to be attained or affected.
- 3Intention or goal.
- 4The ability of someone to aim straight; one’s faculty for being able to hit a physical target.
- 5Conjecture; guess.
Etymology
The verb is from Middle English amen, aimen, eimen (“to guess at, to estimate, to aim”), borrowed from Old French esmer, aesmer, asmer, from Latin ad- plus aestimare (“to estimate”), the compound perhaps being originally formed in Medieval Latin (adaestimare), perhaps in Old French. The noun is from Middle English ame, from Old French aesme, esme.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #2,927 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: