cabin
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cabin", 5-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 "cabin" 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 "cabin" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cabin is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small dwelling characteristic of the frontier, especially when built from logs with simple tools and not constructed by professional builders, but by those who meant to live in it. Pronounced /ˈkæbɪn/. It ranks #5,765 in English word frequency. Often confused with can and Cai.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cabin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæbɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,765 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cabin is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkæbɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,765 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 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 cabin, with forms such as "acbin", "cabbin", and "cabinn". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "can", "Cai", "coin", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English caban, cabane, from Old French cabane, from Medieval Latin capanna (“a cabin”); see further etymology there. Doublet of cabana and cabane. 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 cabin, spelled C-A-B-I-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small dwelling characteristic of the frontier, especially when built from logs with simple tools and not constructed by professional builders, but by those who meant to live in it.
- 2A chalet or lodge, especially one that can hold large groups of people.
- 3A private room on a ship.
- 4The interior of a boat, enclosed to create a small room, particularly for sleeping.
- 5The passenger area of an airplane.
- 6The section of a passenger plane having the same class of service.
- 7A signal box.
- 8A small room; an enclosed place.
- 9A private office; particularly of a doctor, businessman, lawyer, or other professional.
Etymology
From Middle English caban, cabane, from Old French cabane, from Medieval Latin capanna (“a cabin”); see further etymology there. Doublet of cabana and cabane.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acbin,cabbin,cabinn,cabni,caibn,cbain,ccabin
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cabin
Misspelling Variants of "cabin"
Frequency rank: #5,765 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: