cylinder
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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8 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cylinder", 8-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 "cylinder" 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 "cylinder" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cylinder is aEnglishnoun. It means: A surface created by projecting a closed two-dimensional curve along an axis intersecting the plane of the curve. Pronounced /ˈsɪlɪndə(ɹ)/. It ranks #7,212 in English word frequency. Often confused with cinder.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cylinder |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɪlɪndə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #7,212 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cylinder is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɪlɪndə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,212 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 13 documented wrong-spelling variants for cylinder, with forms such as "ccylinder", "clyinder", and "cyilnder". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "cinder", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French chilindre, cylindre, from Latin cylindrus, from Ancient Greek κύλινδρος (kúlindros), from κυλίνδω (kulíndō) "I roll or wallow" (intransitive). Doublet of calander and calender. 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 cylinder, spelled C-Y-L-I-N-D-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A surface created by projecting a closed two-dimensional curve along an axis intersecting the plane of the curve.
- 2A solid figure bounded by a cylinder and two parallel planes intersecting the cylinder.
- 3Any object in the form of a circular cylinder.
- 4A cylindrical cavity or chamber in a mechanism, such as the counterpart to a piston found in a piston-driven engine.
- 5The space in which a piston travels inside a reciprocating engine or pump.
- 6A container in the form of a cylinder with rounded ends for storing pressurized gas; a gas cylinder.
- 7An early form of phonograph recording, made on a wax cylinder.
- 8The part of a revolver that contains chambers for the cartridges.
- 9The corresponding tracks on a vertical arrangement of disks in a disk drive considered as a unit of data capacity.
Etymology
From Middle French chilindre, cylindre, from Latin cylindrus, from Ancient Greek κύλινδρος (kúlindros), from κυλίνδω (kulíndō) "I roll or wallow" (intransitive). Doublet of calander and calender.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccylinder,clyinder,cyilnder,cylidner,cylindder,cylinderr,cylindre,cylinedr,cylinnder,cyllinder,cylnider,cyylinder,yclinder
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cylinder
Misspelling Variants of "cylinder"
Frequency rank: #7,212 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: