application
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
11 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "application", 11-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 "application" 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 "application" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
application is aEnglishnoun. It means: The act of physically applying or laying on. Pronounced /ˌæp.lᵻˈkeɪ.ʃən/. It ranks #1,446 in English word frequency. Often confused with applicator and applications.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | application |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌæp.lᵻˈkeɪ.ʃən/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #1,446 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for application is 11 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌæp.lᵻˈkeɪ.ʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,446 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 15 documented wrong-spelling variants for application, with forms such as "aplication", "aplpication", and "appilcation". 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, "applicator", "applications", 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- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *pel- Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ-der. Latin plicō Latin applicō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin applicātiōbor. Old Fre… 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 application, spelled A-P-P-L-I-C-A-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The act of physically applying or laying on.
- 2The substance applied.
- 3The act of applying as a means; the employment of means to accomplish an end; specific use.
- 4The act of directing or referring something to a particular case, to discover or illustrate agreement or disagreement, fitness, or correspondence.
- 5A computer program or the set of software that the end user perceives as a single entity as a tool for a well-defined purpose. (Also called: application program; application software.)
- 6A verbal or written request for assistance or employment or admission to a school, course or similar.
- 7A petition, entreaty, or other request, with the adposition for denoting the subject matter.
- 8The act of requesting, claiming, or petitioning something.
- 9Diligence; close thought or attention.
- 10A kind of needlework; appliqué.
- 11The substitution of a specific value for the parameter in the abstraction, in lambda calculus.
- 12Compliance.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *pel- Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ-der. Latin plicō Latin applicō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin applicātiōbor. Old French aplicacionbor. Middle English applicacioun English application From Late Middle English applicacioun, borrowed from Old French aplicacion (French application), from Latin applicātiōnem, accusative singular of applicātiō (“attachment; application, inclination”), from applicō (“join to, attach; apply”). Equivalent to apply + -ication.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aplication,aplpication,appilcation,applciation,appliaction,applicaiton,applicasion,applicatino,applicationn,applicatoin,applicattion,appliccation,applictaion,appllication,paplication
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for application
Misspelling Variants of "application"
Frequency rank: #1,446 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: