-ary
/ə.ɹi/
"ary" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“-ary” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a suffix. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Of or pertaining to. Adjectival suffix appended to various words, often nouns, to produce an adjective form. Often added to words of Latin origin, but used with other words also.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ary · -ary · English
-ary · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "-" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | -ary |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Suffix |
| IPA | /ə.ɹi/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “-ary” in English
Rare enough to double-check
-ary is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as asuffix, transcribed /ə.ɹi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for -ary in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English -arie, a back-formation from Latin and French-borrowed adjectives ending respectively in -ārius and -aire (more rarely from Latin adjectives in -āris: see exemplary and lapidary). Doublet of -eer, -yer, -ar, and -ier; see also … The correct English form is -ary, spelled --A-R-Y.
Definition
- 1Of or pertaining to. Adjectival suffix appended to various words, often nouns, to produce an adjective form. Often added to words of Latin origin, but used with other words also.
- 2Ending of some substantives borrowed or inherited from Latin and French.
- 3Having the specified arity.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how -ary appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
devolution + -ary → devolutionary
dictionary, plenipotentiary
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English -arie, a back-formation from Latin and French-borrowed adjectives ending respectively in -ārius and -aire (more rarely from Latin adjectives in -āris: see exemplary and lapidary). Doublet of -eer, -yer, -ar, and -ier; see also the related -arian.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.