column
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "column", 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 "column" 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 "column" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
column is aEnglishnoun. It means: A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration. Pronounced /ˈkɒləm/. It ranks #4,066 in English word frequency. Often confused with columns and Colin.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | column |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɒləm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #4,066 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for column is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkɒləm/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,066 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 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for column, with forms such as "ccolumn", "cloumn", and "collumn". 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 11 confusable-pair relationships, "columns", "Colin", "colon", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English columne, columpne, columpe, borrowed from Old French columne, from Latin columna (“a column, pillar, post”), originally a collateral form of columen, contraction culmen (“a pillar, top, crown, summit”). Akin to Latin collis (“a hill”), c… 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 column, spelled C-O-L-U-M-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration.
- 2A vertical line of entries in a table, usually read from top to bottom.
- 3A body of troops or army vehicles, usually strung out along a road.
- 4A body of text meant to be read line by line, especially in printed material that has multiple adjacent such on a single page.
- 5A unit of width, especially of advertisements, in a periodical, equivalent to the width of a usual column of text.
- 6A recurring feature in a periodical, especially an opinion piece, especially by a single author or small rotating group of authors, or on a single theme.
- 7Something having similar vertical form or structure to the things mentioned above, such as a spinal column.
- 8The gynostemium
- 9An instrument used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.
Etymology
From Middle English columne, columpne, columpe, borrowed from Old French columne, from Latin columna (“a column, pillar, post”), originally a collateral form of columen, contraction culmen (“a pillar, top, crown, summit”). Akin to Latin collis (“a hill”), celsus (“high”), probably to Ancient Greek κολοφών (kolophṓn, “top, summit”).
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccolumn,cloumn,collumn,colmun,colummn,columnn,colunm,coulmn,oclumn
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for column
Misspelling Variants of "column"
Frequency rank: #4,066 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: