amaranth
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "amaranth", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "amaranth" 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 "amaranth" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
amaranth is aEnglishnoun. It means: An imaginary flower that does not wither. Pronounced /ˈæməɹænθ/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | amaranth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæməɹænθ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #60,615 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for amaranth is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæməɹænθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #60,615 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for amaranth in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French amarante, or directly from its etymon Latin amarantus (the word ending influenced by plant names derived from Ancient Greek ἄνθος (ánthos, “a bloom, blossom, flower”)), from Ancient Greek ἀμάραντος (amárantos, “eternal, undying, unfadin… 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 amaranth, spelled A-M-A-R-A-N-T-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An imaginary flower that does not wither.
- 2Any of various herbs of the genus Amaranthus.
- 3The characteristic purplish-red colour of the flowers or leaves of these plants.
- 4A red to purple azo dye used as a biological stain, and in some countries in cosmetics and as a food colouring. See Amaranth (dye).
- 5The seed of these plants, used as a cereal.
Etymology
Borrowed from French amarante, or directly from its etymon Latin amarantus (the word ending influenced by plant names derived from Ancient Greek ἄνθος (ánthos, “a bloom, blossom, flower”)), from Ancient Greek ἀμάραντος (amárantos, “eternal, undying, unfading, unwilting; amaranth; everlasting flower”) (modern Greek αμάραντος (amárantos)), from ᾰ̓- (ă-, the alpha privativum, a prefix forming words having a sense opposite to the word or stem to which it is attached) + μαραίνω (maraínō, “to shrivel, wither”) + -τος (-tos, suffix forming adjectives).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #60,615 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: