dagger
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "dagger", 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 "dagger" 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 "dagger" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
dagger is aEnglishnoun. It means: A stabbing weapon, similar to a sword but with a short, double-edged blade. Pronounced /ˈdæɡə/. Often confused with danger and dancer.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dagger |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdæɡə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #14,101 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dagger is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdæɡə/. Corpus data places it at rank #14,101 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for dagger, with forms such as "adgger", "dagegr", and "dager". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "danger", "dancer", "darker", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English daggere, daggare, dagard, probably adapted from Old French dague (1229), related to Occitan, Italian, Spanish daga, Dutch dagge, German Degen, Middle Low German dagge (“knife's point”), Old Norse daggarðr, Danish daggert, Faroese daggari… 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 dagger, spelled D-A-G-G-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A stabbing weapon, similar to a sword but with a short, double-edged blade.
- 2The typographical mark †.
- 3A point scored near the end of the game (clutch time) to take or increase the scorer's team lead, so that they are likely to win.
Etymology
From Middle English daggere, daggare, dagard, probably adapted from Old French dague (1229), related to Occitan, Italian, Spanish daga, Dutch dagge, German Degen, Middle Low German dagge (“knife's point”), Old Norse daggarðr, Danish daggert, Faroese daggari, Welsh dager, dagr, Breton dac, Albanian thikë (“a knife, dagger”), thek (“to stab, to pierce with a sharp object”). In English attested from the 1380s. The ultimate origin of the word is unclear. Grimm suspects Celtic origin. Others have suggested derivation from an unattested Vulgar Latin *daca "Dacian [knife]", from the Latin adjective dācus. Chastelain (Dictionaire etymologique, 1750) thought that French dague was a derivation from German dagge, dagen, although not attested until a much later date). The knightly dagger evolves from the 12th century. Guillaume le Breton (died 1226) uses daca in his Philippide. Other Middle Latin forms include daga, dagga, dagha, dagger, daggerius, daggerium, dagarium, dagarius, diga; the forms with -r- are late 14th century adoptions of the English word). OED points out that there is also an English verb dag (“to stab”) from which this could be a derivation, but the verb is attested only from about 1400. Relation to Old Armenian դակու (daku, “adze, axe”) has also been suggested. Alternatively, a connection from Proto-Indo-European *dʰāg-u- and cognate with Ancient Greek θήγω (thḗgō, “to sharpen, whet”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: adgger,dagegr,dager,daggerr,daggre,ddagger,dgager
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for dagger
Misspelling Variants of "dagger"
Frequency rank: #14,101 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: