ash
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "ash", 3-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 "ash" 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 "ash" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
ash is aEnglishnoun. It means: Solid remains of a fire. Pronounced /æʃ/. It ranks #5,477 in English word frequency. Often confused with at and aw.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ash |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /æʃ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,477 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ash is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /æʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,477 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for ash in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "at", "aw", "AU", 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 *h₂eHs-der.? Proto-Germanic *askǭ Proto-West Germanic *askā Old English æsce Middle English asshe English ash From Middle English asshe, from Old English æsċe, from Proto-West Germanic *askā, from Proto-Germanic *askǭ (com… 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 ash, spelled A-S-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Solid remains of a fire.
- 2The nonaqueous remains of a material subjected to any complete oxidation process.
- 3Fine particles from a volcano, volcanic ash.
- 4Human (or animal) remains after cremation.
- 5Mortal remains in general.
- 6What remains after a catastrophe.
- 7A gray color, similar to that of the remains of a fire.
- 8The resultant remaining more stable patterns that emerge from the evolution of a soup or a similarly random pattern.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eHs-der.? Proto-Germanic *askǭ Proto-West Germanic *askā Old English æsce Middle English asshe English ash From Middle English asshe, from Old English æsċe, from Proto-West Germanic *askā, from Proto-Germanic *askǭ (compare West Frisian jiske, Dutch as, Low German Asch, German Asche, Danish aske, Swedish aska, Norwegian aske), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eHs-; see it for cognates. The rare plural axen is from Middle English axen, axnen, from Old English axan, asċan (“ashes”) (plural of Old English axe, æsċe (“ash”)).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #5,477 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "ash"?
What does "ash" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "ash"?
How do you pronounce "ash"?
What is the origin of the word "ash"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: