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deprecate

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

9 characters

Language

English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "deprecate", 9-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 "deprecate" 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 "deprecate" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

deprecate is aEnglishverb. It means: To express disapproval of, protest or plead against. Pronounced /ˈdɛpɹɪkeɪt/.

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Key facts for deprecate
PropertyValue
Headworddeprecate
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
IPA/ˈdɛpɹɪkeɪt/
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

deprecate is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for deprecate is 9 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɛpɹɪkeɪt/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for deprecate in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin dēprecātus, perfect active participle of dēprecor (“to pray against (a present or impending evil) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), pray for, intercede for (that which is in danger), rarely imprecate”), from dē- (“off”) + precor (“to pra… 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 deprecate, spelled D-E-P-R-E-C-A-T-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    To express disapproval of, protest or plead against.
  2. 2
    To belittle, depreciate.
  3. 3
    To declare something obsolescent; to recommend against a function, technique, command, etc. that still works but has been replaced.
  4. 4
    To pray against.
  5. 5
    To regret deeply.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin dēprecātus, perfect active participle of dēprecor (“to pray against (a present or impending evil) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), pray for, intercede for (that which is in danger), rarely imprecate”), from dē- (“off”) + precor (“to pray”).

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "deprecate"?
"deprecate" is spelled D-E-P-R-E-C-A-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈdɛpɹɪkeɪt/.
What does "deprecate" mean?
As a verb, "deprecate" means: To express disapproval of, protest or plead against.
How do you pronounce "deprecate"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "deprecate" is /ˈdɛpɹɪkeɪt/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "deprecate"?
Borrowed from Latin dēprecātus, perfect active participle of dēprecor (“to pray against (a present or impending evil) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), pray for, intercede for (that which is in danger), rarely imprecate”), from dē- (“off”) + preco... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.