deep
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "deep", 4-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 "deep" 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 "deep" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
deep is anEnglishadj. It means: Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards. Pronounced /diːp/. It ranks #945 in English word frequency. Often confused with DP and due.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | deep |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /diːp/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #945 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for deep is 4 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /diːp/. Corpus data places it at rank #945 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 20 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for deep, with forms such as "ddeep", "deepp", and "depe". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "DP", "due", "die", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English depe, deep, dep, deop, from Old English dēop (“deep, profound; awful, mysterious; heinous; serious, solemn, earnest; extreme, great”), from Proto-West Germanic *deup, from Proto-Germanic *deupaz (“deep”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ… 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 deep, spelled D-E-E-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 2Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 3Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 4Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 5Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 6Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 7Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 8Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 9Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 10Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.
- 11Complex, involved.
- 12Complex, involved.
- 13Complex, involved.
- 14Complex, involved.
- 15Complex, involved.
- 16Low in pitch.
- 17Highly saturated; rich.
- 18Sound, heavy (describing a state of sleep from which one is not easily awoken).
- 19Muddy; boggy; sandy; said of roads.
- 20Distant in the past, ancient.
Etymology
From Middle English depe, deep, dep, deop, from Old English dēop (“deep, profound; awful, mysterious; heinous; serious, solemn, earnest; extreme, great”), from Proto-West Germanic *deup, from Proto-Germanic *deupaz (“deep”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ-nós, from *dʰewbʰ- (“deep”). Cognates Cognate with Scots depe (“deep”), North Frisian diip, jip (“deep”), Saterland Frisian djoop (“deep”), West Frisian djip (“deep”), Alemannic German tüüf (“deep”), Central Franconian deef, deep (“deep”), Dutch diep (“deep”), German tief (“deep”), Luxembourgish déif (“deep”), Mòcheno tiaf (“deep”), Vilamovian tif, tīf, tiif (“deep”), Yiddish טיף (tif, “deep”), Danish dyb (“deep”), Faroese, Icelandic djúpur (“deep”), Norwegian Bokmål djup, dyp (“deep”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Swedish djup (“deep”), Scanian djyber (“deep”), Gothic 𐌳𐌹𐌿𐍀𐍃 (diups, “deep”), Lithuanian dubùs (“deep, hollow”), Albanian det (“sea”), Welsh dwfn (“deep”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddeep,deepp,depe,edep
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for deep
Misspelling Variants of "deep"
Frequency rank: #945 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: