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devilment

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

Letters

9 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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

devilment is aEnglishnoun. It means: Devilish action or conduct; wickedness; (more generally) troublemaking behaviour; mischief; (countable) an instance of this. Pronounced /ˈdɛv(ɪ)lm(ə)nt/.

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Key facts for devilment
PropertyValue
Headworddevilment
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈdɛv(ɪ)lm(ə)nt/
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

devilment 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 devilment is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɛv(ɪ)lm(ə)nt/. 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 devilment 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: From devil + -ment (suffix forming nouns indicating the actions or results of what is denoted by the words it is attached to). 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 devilment, spelled D-E-V-I-L-M-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Devilish action or conduct; wickedness; (more generally) troublemaking behaviour; mischief; (countable) an instance of this.
  2. 2
    A devilish, mischievous, or reckless nature; mischievousness.
  3. 3
    Something cruel or evil; also, something which causes distress or suffering.
  4. 4
    Something cleverly constructed.
  5. 5
    A dish which is devilled (“made piquant or spicy”); a devil; also, the elements of the dish which make it spicy, or the piquancy or spiciness of the dish.

Etymology

From devil + -ment (suffix forming nouns indicating the actions or results of what is denoted by the words it is attached to).

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "devilment"?
"devilment" is spelled D-E-V-I-L-M-E-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈdɛv(ɪ)lm(ə)nt/.
What does "devilment" mean?
As a noun, "devilment" means: Devilish action or conduct; wickedness; (more generally) troublemaking behaviour; mischief; (countable) an instance of this.
How do you pronounce "devilment"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "devilment" is /ˈdɛv(ɪ)lm(ə)nt/. 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 "devilment"?
From devil + -ment (suffix forming nouns indicating the actions or results of what is denoted by the words it is attached to). See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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.