dive
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "dive", 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 "dive" 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 "dive" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
dive is aEnglishverb. It means: To swim under water. Pronounced /daɪv/. It ranks #5,875 in English word frequency. Often confused with DV and due.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dive |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /daɪv/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,875 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dive is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /daɪv/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,875 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for dive, with forms such as "ddive", "diev", and "divve". 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, "DV", "due", "DVD", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English diven, duven, from the merger of Old English dȳfan (“to dip, immerse”, transitive weak verb) (from Proto-Germanic *dūbijaną) and dūfan (“to duck, dive, sink, penetrate”, intransitive strong verb) (past participle ġedofen). Cognate with I… 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 dive, spelled D-I-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To swim under water.
- 2To jump into water head-first.
- 3To jump headfirst toward the ground or into another substance.
- 4To descend sharply or steeply.
- 5To lose altitude quickly by pointing downwards, as with a bird or aircraft.
- 6To undertake with enthusiasm.
- 7To deliberately fall down after a challenge, imitating being fouled, in the hope of getting one's opponent penalised.
- 8To leap while fielding to take a brilliant catch which usually results in a wicket and appreciation.
- 9To cause to descend, dunk; to plunge something into water.
- 10To explore by diving; to plunge into.
- 11To plunge or to go deeply into any subject, question, business, etc.; to penetrate; to explore.
Etymology
From Middle English diven, duven, from the merger of Old English dȳfan (“to dip, immerse”, transitive weak verb) (from Proto-Germanic *dūbijaną) and dūfan (“to duck, dive, sink, penetrate”, intransitive strong verb) (past participle ġedofen). Cognate with Icelandic dýfa (“to dip, dive”), Low German bedaven (“covered, covered with water”). See also deep, dip.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddive,diev,divve,dvie,idve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for dive
Misspelling Variants of "dive"
Frequency rank: #5,875 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: