dictionary
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
10 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "dictionary", 10-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 "dictionary" 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 "dictionary" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
dictionary is aEnglishnoun. It means: A reference work listing words or names from one or more languages, usually ordered alphabetically, explaining each word's meanings or senses, oftentimes also containing information on its etymolog... Pronounced /ˈdɪk.ʃə.nə.ɹi/. It ranks #6,891 in English word frequency.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dictionary |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɪk.ʃə.nə.ɹi/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #6,891 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dictionary is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɪk.ʃə.nə.ɹi/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,891 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 15 documented wrong-spelling variants for dictionary, with forms such as "dcitionary", "ddictionary", and "dicctionary". 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 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: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *deyḱ- Proto-Indo-European *déyḱeti Proto-Italic *deikō Medieval Latin dīcō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Medieval Latin -tiō Medieval Latin dictiō Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āsios Medi… 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 dictionary, spelled D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A reference work listing words or names from one or more languages, usually ordered alphabetically, explaining each word's meanings or senses, oftentimes also containing information on its etymology, pronunciation, usage, semantic relations, translations, as well as other relevant information.
- 2A reference work on a particular subject or activity in which the entries are arranged alphabetically; an alphabetical encyclopedia.
- 3A person or thing regarded as a repository or compendium of information.
- 4The collection of words used or understood by a particular person; vocabulary.
- 5A synchronic dictionary of a standardised language held to only contain words that are properly part of the language.
- 6An associative array, a data structure where each value is referenced by a particular key, analogous to words and definitions in a dictionary (noun sense 1).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *deyḱ- Proto-Indo-European *déyḱeti Proto-Italic *deikō Medieval Latin dīcō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Medieval Latin -tiō Medieval Latin dictiō Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āsios Medieval Latin -ārius Medieval Latin -ārium Medieval Latin dictiōnāriumlbor. Middle English dixionare English dictionary From Middle English dixionare, a learned borrowing from Medieval Latin dictiōnārium, from Latin dictiōnārius, from dictiō (“a speaking”), from dictus, perfect past participle of dīcō (“to speak”) + -ārium (“room, place”). By surface analysis, diction + -ary.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: dcitionary,ddictionary,dicctionary,dicitonary,dictinoary,dictioanry,dictionarry,dictionaryy,dictionayr,dictionnary,dictionray,dictoinary,dicttionary,ditcionary,idctionary
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for dictionary
Misspelling Variants of "dictionary"
Frequency rank: #6,891 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: