doldrums
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "doldrums", 8-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 "doldrums" 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 "doldrums" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
doldrums is aEnglishnoun. It means: Usually preceded by the: a state of apathy or lack of interest; a situation where one feels boredom, ennui, or tedium; a state of listlessness or malaise. Pronounced /ˈdɒldɹəmz/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | doldrums |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɒldɹəmz/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #57,346 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for doldrums is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɒldɹəmz/. Corpus data places it at rank #57,346 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for doldrums 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 obsolete doldrum (“slothful or stupid person”) plus the plural suffix -s. Doldrum is possibly derived from dull or Middle English dold (past participle of dullen, dollen (“to make or become blunt or dull; to make or become dull-witted or stupid; to mak… 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 doldrums, spelled D-O-L-D-R-U-M-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Usually preceded by the: a state of apathy or lack of interest; a situation where one feels boredom, ennui, or tedium; a state of listlessness or malaise.
- 2Usually preceded by the: the state of a sailing ship when it is impeded by calms or light, baffling winds, and is unable to make progress.
- 3Usually preceded by the: a part of the ocean near the equator where calms, squalls, and light, baffling winds are common.
Etymology
From obsolete doldrum (“slothful or stupid person”) plus the plural suffix -s. Doldrum is possibly derived from dull or Middle English dold (past participle of dullen, dollen (“to make or become blunt or dull; to make or become dull-witted or stupid; to make or become inactive”), from dul, dol, dolle (“not sharp, blunt, dull; not quick-witted, stupid; lethargic, sluggish”); see further at dull), modelled after tantrum.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #57,346 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: