character
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "character", 9-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 "character" 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 "character" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
character is aEnglishnoun. It means: A being involved in the action of a story; a persona. Pronounced /ˈkæ.ɹɪk.tə/. It ranks #803 in English word frequency. Often confused with charter and characters.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | character |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæ.ɹɪk.tə/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #803 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for character is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkæ.ɹɪk.tə/. Corpus data places it at rank #803 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for character, with forms such as "cahracter", "ccharacter", and "chaarcter". 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, "charter", "characters", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin character, from Ancient Greek χαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr, “type, nature, character”), from χαράσσω (kharássō, “to engrave”). Doublet of charakter. 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 character, spelled C-H-A-R-A-C-T-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A being involved in the action of a story; a persona.
- 2A distinguishing feature; characteristic; trait; nature; phene.
- 3A complex of traits marking a person, group, breed, or type.
- 4Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality; moral strength.
- 5A unique or extraordinary individual; a person characterized by peculiar or notable traits, especially charisma.
- 6A written or printed symbol, or letter.
- 7Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the particular form of letters used by a person or people.
- 8A secret cipher; a way of writing in code.
- 9One of the basic elements making up a text file or string: a code representing a printing character or a control character.
- 10A person or individual, especially one who is unknown.
- 11An assignment of complex numbers to each element of a group, in particular a finite abelian group. More precisely, a group homomorphism into the group of units of a field (usually ℂ).
- 12Quality, position, rank, or capacity; quality or conduct with respect to a certain office or duty.
- 13The estimate, individual or general, put upon a person or thing; reputation.
- 14A reference given to a servant, attesting to their behaviour, competence, etc.
- 15Personal appearance.
Etymology
From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin character, from Ancient Greek χαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr, “type, nature, character”), from χαράσσω (kharássō, “to engrave”). Doublet of charakter.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cahracter,ccharacter,chaarcter,characcter,characetr,characterr,charactre,charactter,charatcer,charcater,charracter,chharacter,chraacter,hcaracter
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for character
Misspelling Variants of "character"
Frequency rank: #803 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: