caddy
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 "caddy", 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 "caddy" 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 "caddy" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
caddy is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small box or tin (can) with a lid for holding dried tea leaves used to brew tea. Pronounced /ˈkædi/. Often confused with cay and card.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | caddy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkædi/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #30,351 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for caddy is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkædi/. Corpus data places it at rank #30,351 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for caddy, with forms such as "acddy", "caddyy", and "cady". 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, "cay", "card", "Cody", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: An alteration of catty (“(unit of) weight used in China, equivalent to 1⅓ pounds avoirdupois (about 0.605 kilograms)”), borrowed from Malay kati (“weight used in China, Indonesia, and Japan”), from Tamil கட்டி (kaṭṭi, “measure of weight; clod, lump”), from … 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 caddy, spelled C-A-D-D-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small box or tin (can) with a lid for holding dried tea leaves used to brew tea.
- 2A (usually small) box, chest, or tin with a lid, and often with partitions, used to keep things in.
- 3A small lidded bin for food waste.
- 4A movable tray or other mechanism for holding (sometimes within a piece of equipment or machinery), securing, and transporting a removable component.
- 5A lightweight wheeled cart; specifically, one attached to a bicycle as a conveyance for a child, or pulled by hand and used to transport groceries away from a shop.
Etymology
An alteration of catty (“(unit of) weight used in China, equivalent to 1⅓ pounds avoirdupois (about 0.605 kilograms)”), borrowed from Malay kati (“weight used in China, Indonesia, and Japan”), from Tamil கட்டி (kaṭṭi, “measure of weight; clod, lump”), from கட்டு (kaṭṭu, “to coagulate, congeal, or consolidate (into a concretion); to harden”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acddy,caddyy,cady,cadyd,ccaddy,cdady
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for caddy
Misspelling Variants of "caddy"
Frequency rank: #30,351 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: