bishop
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bishop", 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 "bishop" 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 "bishop" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bishop is aEnglishnoun. It means: An overseer of congregations: either any such overseer, generally speaking, or (in Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc.) an official in the church hierarchy (actively or nominally) gov... Pronounced /ˈbɪʃəp/. It ranks #3,742 in English word frequency. Often confused with bison and bishops.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bishop |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbɪʃəp/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,742 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bishop is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɪʃəp/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,742 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 12 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 bishop, with forms such as "bbishop", "bihsop", and "bishhop". 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, "bison", "bishops", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bischop, bishop, bisshop, biscop, from Old English bisċop (“bishop”), from Proto-West Germanic *biskop, from Vulgar Latin (e)biscopus, from classical Latin episcopus (“overseer, supervisor”), from Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos, “ove… 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 bishop, spelled B-I-S-H-O-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An overseer of congregations: either any such overseer, generally speaking, or (in Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc.) an official in the church hierarchy (actively or nominally) governing a diocese, supervising the church's priests, deacons, and property in its territory.
- 2An overseer of congregations: either any such overseer, generally speaking, or (in Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc.) an official in the church hierarchy (actively or nominally) governing a diocese, supervising the church's priests, deacons, and property in its territory.
- 3The holder of the Greek or Roman position of episcopus, supervisor over the public dole of grain, etc.
- 4Any watchman, inspector, or overlooker.
- 5A chief of the Festival of Fools or St. Nicholas Day.
- 6The chess piece denoted ♗ or ♝ which moves along diagonal lines and developed from the shatranj alfil ("elephant") and was originally known as the aufil or archer in English.
- 7Any of various African birds of the genus Euplectes; a kind of weaverbird closely related to the widowbirds.
- 8A ladybug or ladybird, beetles of the family Coccinellidae.
- 9A flowering plant of the genus Bifora.
- 10A sweet drink made from wine, usually with oranges, lemons, and sugar; mulled and spiced port.
- 11A bustle.
- 12A children's smock or pinafore.
Etymology
From Middle English bischop, bishop, bisshop, biscop, from Old English bisċop (“bishop”), from Proto-West Germanic *biskop, from Vulgar Latin (e)biscopus, from classical Latin episcopus (“overseer, supervisor”), from Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos, “overseer”), from ἐπί (epí, “over”) + σκοπός (skopós, “watcher”), used in Greek and Latin both generally and as a title of civil officers. Cognate with all European terms for the position in various Christian churches; compare also Middle English bisp (“bishop”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbishop,bihsop,bishhop,bishopp,bishpo,bisohp,bisshop,bsihop,ibshop
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bishop
Misspelling Variants of "bishop"
Frequency rank: #3,742 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: