day
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "day", 3-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 "day" 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 "day" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
day is aEnglishnoun. It means: The time when the Sun is above the horizon and it lights the sky. Pronounced /deɪ̯/. It ranks #120 in English word frequency. Often confused with do and Dr.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | day |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /deɪ̯/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #120 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for day is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /deɪ̯/. Corpus data places it at rank #120 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for day in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "do", "Dr", "de", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ-? Proto-Germanic *dagaz Proto-West Germanic *dag Old English dæġ Middle English day English day Inherited from Middle English day, from Old English dæġ, from Proto-West Germanic *dag, from Proto-Germanic *dagaz (“d… 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 day, spelled D-A-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The time when the Sun is above the horizon and it lights the sky.
- 2A period of time equal or almost equal to a full day-night cycle, being 24 hours long.
- 3A period of time equal or almost equal to a full day-night cycle, being 24 hours long.
- 4A period of time equal or almost equal to a full day-night cycle, being 24 hours long.
- 5A 24-hour period beginning at 6am or sunrise.
- 6A period of time between two set times which mark the beginning and the end of day in a calendar, such as from midnight to the following midnight or (Judaism) from nightfall to the following nightfall.
- 7The rotational period of a planet.
- 8The part of a day period which one spends at one’s job, school, etc.
- 9An observance lasting for a day, such as an annual holiday.
- 10A specified time or period; time, considered with reference to the existence or prominence of a person or thing; age; time; era.
- 11A period of contention of a day or less.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ-? Proto-Germanic *dagaz Proto-West Germanic *dag Old English dæġ Middle English day English day Inherited from Middle English day, from Old English dæġ, from Proto-West Germanic *dag, from Proto-Germanic *dagaz (“day”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn”). Cognates Cognate with Scots day, dei, dey, dy (“day”), Yola daie, dei, dey, die (“day”), North Frisian dai, doi, däi (“day”), Saterland Frisian Dai (“day”), West Frisian dei (“day”), Bavarian Dåg, Tåg (“day”), Central Franconian Daach (“day”), Cimbrian tag, tage (“day”), Dutch dag, dagge (“day”), German Tag (“day”), German Low German Dag, Dagg (“day”), Limburgish Daach, Daag (“day”), Luxembourgish Dag (“day”), Mòcheno ta (“day”), Vilamovian taog (“day”), West Flemish dag (“day”), Yiddish טאָג (tog, “day”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish dag (“day”), Faroese and Icelandic dagur (“day”), Norn dagh (“day”), Crimean Gothic tag (“day”), Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌲𐍃 (dags, “day”), Vandalic *dag- (“day”); also Breton deviñ (“to burn”), Cornish dewi (“to kindle”), Irish daigh (“fire, flame”), dóigh (“to burn, singe; sear, scorch”), Manx daah (“to scorch, singe; to cauterize”), Scottish Gaelic dòth (“scorch, singe; burn”), Welsh deifio (“to scorch, singe”), Latin foveō (“to warm, keep warm”), Greek τέφρα (téfra, “ash, cinder”), Albanian dhez, ndez (“to kindle, light”), Old Prussian dagis (“summer”), Armenian հրդեհ (hrdeh, “fire”), Sanskrit दह् (dah, “to burn, consume by fire, scorch, roast”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #120 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: