average
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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7 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "average", 7-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 "average" 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 "average" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
average is aEnglishnoun. It means: Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode. Pronounced /ˈæv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/. It ranks #704 in English word frequency. Often confused with averse and avenge.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | average |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #704 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for average is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #704 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for average, with forms such as "aevrage", "avearge", and "averaeg". 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, "averse", "avenge", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Arabic عَوَار (ʕawār) Arabic ـِيّ (-iyy) Proto-Afroasiatic *-t Proto-Semitic *-at- Arabic ـَة (-a) Arabic ـِيَّة (-iyya) Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya)? Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- Proto-Italic *haβēō Latin habeō Old Italian avere? Old Ital… 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 average, spelled A-V-E-R-A-G-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode.
- 2Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode.
- 3Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.
- 4Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.
- 5Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.
- 6An indication of a player's ability calculated from his scoring record, etc.
Etymology
Etymology tree Arabic عَوَار (ʕawār) Arabic ـِيّ (-iyy) Proto-Afroasiatic *-t Proto-Semitic *-at- Arabic ـَة (-a) Arabic ـِيَّة (-iyya) Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya)? Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- Proto-Italic *haβēō Latin habeō Old Italian avere? Old Italian avariabor. Old French avarie Middle French avarie Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Italic *-kos Latin -cus Latin -icus Latin -āticus Latin -āticum Old French -agebor. Middle English -age English -age English average Not entirely certain. The oldest meaning in English is “customs duty”. Borrowed from Middle French avarie (“damage to ship or cargo”), from Old French avarie, from Old Italian avaria where it is first attested in the 12th century in the context of Mediterranean trade. From there most sources trace it to Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya, “damaged goods”), from عَوَار (ʕawār, “fault, blemish, defect, flaw”), from عَوِرَ (ʕawira, “to lose an eye”), but the OED gives it a Romance derivation from Italian avere (“property, goods”) or the like. The English suffix -age was added in analogy to words like damage.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aevrage,avearge,averaeg,averagge,avergae,averrage,avreage,avverage,vaerage
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for average
Misspelling Variants of "average"
Frequency rank: #704 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: