benediction
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
11 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "benediction", 11-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "benediction" 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 "benediction" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
benediction is aEnglishnoun. It means: A short invocation for help, blessing and guidance from God, said on behalf of another person or persons (sometimes at the end of a church worship service). Pronounced /ˌbɛnəˈdɪkʃən/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | benediction |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌbɛnəˈdɪkʃən/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #53,399 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for benediction is 11 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌbɛnəˈdɪkʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #53,399 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for benediction in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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: From Middle English benediccion, from Ecclesiastical Latin benedictio, benedictionis, from benedictus (“blessed; well spoken of”). Doublet of benison. 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 benediction, spelled B-E-N-E-D-I-C-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A short invocation for help, blessing and guidance from God, said on behalf of another person or persons (sometimes at the end of a church worship service).
- 2In the Anglican church, the ceremony used to institute an abbot, analogous to the consecration of a bishop.
- 3A Roman Catholic rite by which bells, banners, candles, etc., are blessed with holy water and formally dedicated to God.
- 4Help, good fortune or reward from God or another supernatural source.
Etymology
From Middle English benediccion, from Ecclesiastical Latin benedictio, benedictionis, from benedictus (“blessed; well spoken of”). Doublet of benison.
Antonyms
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Frequency rank: #53,399 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: