america
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "america", 7-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 "america" 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 "america" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
America is aEnglishname. It means: A supercontinent consisting of North America, Central America and South America regarded as a whole; in full, the Americas. Pronounced /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kə/. It ranks #603 in English word frequency. Often confused with American and Americas.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | America |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kə/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #603 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for America is 7 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kə/. Corpus data places it at rank #603 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for America, with forms such as "aemrica", "ameirca", and "amercia". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "American", "Americas", "Americana", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃emh₃- Proto-Germanic *amalą Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs Proto-Celtic *rīxsbor. Proto-Germanic *rīks Proto-Germanic *Amalarīksder. Proto-Indo-European *ḱey- Proto-Indo-… 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 America, spelled A-M-E-R-I-C-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A supercontinent consisting of North America, Central America and South America regarded as a whole; in full, the Americas.
- 2A country in North America; in full, United States of America.
- 3A female given name.
- 4A town in Limburg, Netherlands.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃emh₃- Proto-Germanic *amalą Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs Proto-Celtic *rīxsbor. Proto-Germanic *rīks Proto-Germanic *Amalarīksder. Proto-Indo-European *ḱey- Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos Proto-Indo-European *tḱóymos Proto-Germanic *haimaz ▲ Proto-Germanic *rīks Proto-Germanic *Haimarīksder.? Italian Amerigoder. New Latin Americalbor. English America Learned borrowing from New Latin America, feminine Latinized form of the Italian first name of Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512). Amerigo is an Italian name derived from a Germanic language and is etymologically related to Henry and Emmerich. The earliest known use of America for the (South) American continent is on a 1507 map by Martin Waldseemüller; see Naming of the Americas for more. Although this is the most widely accepted derivation, it has also been suggested that it could originate from the name of the Amerrisque mountains in Nicaragua (from Mayan), and another disputed theory is that it derives from the surname of Richard Amerike (1440–1503), whose surname is an anglicised form of Welsh ap Meurig (“son of Meurig”), from Old Welsh Mouric, which could be a rendition of Latin Mauritius (compare Maurice).
Synonyms
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aemrica,ameirca,amercia,ameriac,americca,amerrica,ammerica,amreica,maerica
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for America
Misspelling Variants of "America"
Frequency rank: #603 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: