current
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "current", 7-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 "current" 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 "current" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
current is aEnglishnoun. It means: The generally unidirectional movement of a gas or fluid. Pronounced /kəˈrɛɳʈ/. It ranks #539 in English word frequency. Often confused with currently and Curran.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | current |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kəˈrɛɳʈ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #539 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for current is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kəˈrɛɳʈ/. Corpus data places it at rank #539 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 5 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 current, with forms such as "ccurrent", "crurent", and "curent". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "currently", "Curran", "correct", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English curraunt, borrowed from Old French curant (French courant), present participle of courre (“to run”), from Latin currere (“to run”) (present participle currens). Doublet of courant. 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 current, spelled C-U-R-R-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The generally unidirectional movement of a gas or fluid.
- 2The part of a fluid that moves continuously in a certain direction, especially (oceanography) ellipsis of ocean current.
- 3Ellipsis of electric current.
- 4Ellipsis of electric current.
- 5A tendency or a course of events.
Etymology
From Middle English curraunt, borrowed from Old French curant (French courant), present participle of courre (“to run”), from Latin currere (“to run”) (present participle currens). Doublet of courant.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccurrent,crurent,curent,curernt,currennt,currentt,curretn,currnet,ucrrent
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for current
Misspelling Variants of "current"
Frequency rank: #539 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: