arithmetic
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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10 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "arithmetic", 10-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 "arithmetic" 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 "arithmetic" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
arithmetic is aEnglishnoun. It means: The mathematics of numbers (integers, rational numbers, real numbers, or complex numbers) under the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Pronounced /əˈɹɪθmətɪk/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | arithmetic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈɹɪθmətɪk/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #17,075 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for arithmetic is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈɹɪθmətɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,075 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 2 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 arithmetic, with forms such as "airthmetic", "arihtmetic", and "arithemtic". 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 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: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *h₂reh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-éyti Proto-Indo-European *h₂rey-der. Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ρῐθμός (ărĭthmós) Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *-eyéti 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 arithmetic, spelled A-R-I-T-H-M-E-T-I-C, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The mathematics of numbers (integers, rational numbers, real numbers, or complex numbers) under the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
- 2Number theory
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *h₂reh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-éyti Proto-Indo-European *h₂rey-der. Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ρῐθμός (ărĭthmós) Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *-eyéti Proto-Indo-European *-esyéti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁yeti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Ancient Greek -έω (-éō) Ancient Greek ἀριθμέω (arithméō) Proto-Indo-European *-tis Ancient Greek -τις (-tis) Ancient Greek -σις (-sis) Proto-Indo-European *-kos Ancient Greek -κός (-kós) ? Proto-Indo-European *-tós Ancient Greek -τος (-tos) ▲ Ancient Greek -κός (-kós) ? Ancient Greek -τικός (-tikós) Ancient Greek ἀριθμητῐκός (arithmētĭkós) Ancient Greek ἀριθμητῐκή (arithmētĭkḗ)bor. Latin arithmēticabor. ▲ Ancient Greek ἀριθμητῐκός (arithmētĭkós)bor. Latin arithmēticusbor. Old French arismetiquebor. Middle English arsmetike English arithmetic From Middle English arsmetike, from Old French arismetique, from Latin arithmētica, from Ancient Greek ἀριθμητική (τέχνη) (arithmētikḗ (tékhnē), “(art of) counting”), feminine of ἀριθμητικός (arithmētikós, “arithmetical”), from ἀριθμός (arithmós, “number, counting”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ri-dʰh₁-mó-s, form of *h₂rey- (“to count, reason”). Used in English since 13th century.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: airthmetic,arihtmetic,arithemtic,arithhmetic,arithmeitc,arithmetci,arithmeticc,arithmettic,arithmmetic,arithmteic,aritmhetic,aritthmetic,arrithmetic,artihmetic,raithmetic
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for arithmetic
Misspelling Variants of "arithmetic"
Frequency rank: #17,075 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: