assist
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "assist", 6-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 "assist" 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 "assist" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
assist is aEnglishverb. It means: To help. Pronounced /əˈsɪst/. It ranks #3,468 in English word frequency. Often confused with assists and assisted.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | assist |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /əˈsɪst/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,468 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for assist is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈsɪst/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,468 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for assist, with forms such as "asisst", "asist", and "assisst". 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 9 confusable-pair relationships, "assists", "assisted", "asset", 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 *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *stísteh₂ti Proto-Italic *sistō Latin sistō Latin assistō Old French assisterbor. Middle English assisten English assist Fr… 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 assist, spelled A-S-S-I-S-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To help.
- 2To make a pass that leads directly towards scoring.
- 3To help compensate for what is missing with the help of a medical technique or therapy.
- 4To stand (at a place) or to (an opinion).
- 5To be present (at an event, occasion etc.).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *stísteh₂ti Proto-Italic *sistō Latin sistō Latin assistō Old French assisterbor. Middle English assisten English assist From Middle English assisten, from Old French assister (“to assist, to attend”), from Latin assistō (“stand at, bestand”, verb).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asisst,asist,assisst,assistt,assits,asssit,sasist
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for assist
Misspelling Variants of "assist"
Frequency rank: #3,468 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: