citation form
"citation-form" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“citation form” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The basic form of a word or set of words used as a dictionary entry (of any part of speech, but especially of a phrase).
Corpus desk
Index EN-citation-form · citation form · English
citation form · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | citation form |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “citation form” in English
Rare enough to double-check
citation form is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The basic form of a word or set of words used as a dictionary entry (of any part of speech, but especially of a phrase).".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for citation form, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is citation form, spelled C-I-T-A-T-I-O-N- -F-O-R-M.
Definition
- 1The basic form of a word or set of words used as a dictionary entry (of any part of speech, but especially of a phrase).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how citation form appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
For English, the citation form of a noun is the singular (and non-possessive) form: mouse rather than mice. For multiword lexemes that contain possessive adjectives or reflexive pronouns, the citation form uses a form of the indefinite pronoun one: do one's best, perjure oneself. In European languages with grammatical gender, the citation form of regular…
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.