dolly
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "dolly", 5-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 "dolly" 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 "dolly" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
dolly is aEnglishnoun. It means: A doll. Pronounced /ˈdɑli/. Often confused with dull and duly.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dolly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɑli/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #14,108 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dolly is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɑli/. Corpus data places it at rank #14,108 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 17 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for dolly, with forms such as "ddolly", "dloly", and "dollyy". 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, "dull", "duly", "dory", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From doll + -y, from the given name Dorothy, originally applied either to a woman or female pet or to a children's toy, and expanded to refer to various types of contrivances or devices. The Online Etymology Dictionary, while considering the reason for appl… 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 dolly, spelled D-O-L-L-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A doll.
- 2A roughly cylindrical wooden object used as a base when molding pie crust.
- 3A contrivance for stirring:
- 4A contrivance for stirring:
- 5A tool with an indented head for shaping the head of a rivet.
- 6In pile driving, a block interposed between the head of the pile and the ram of the driver.
- 7A small truck with a single wide roller used for moving heavy beams, columns, etc., in bridge building.
- 8A small truck without means of steering, to be slipped under a load.
- 9An unpowered vehicle (trailer) designed for connection to a tractor unit, truck or prime mover vehicle, with strong traction power.
- 10A compact, narrow-gauge locomotive used for moving construction trains, switching, etc.
- 11A specialized piece of film equipment resembling a little cart on which a camera is mounted.
- 12A young woman, especially one who is frivolous or vapid.
- 13A fashionable young woman, one who follows the latest music or clothing fashions.
- 14A ball hit by a batsman such that it goes gently to a fielder for a simple catch.
- 15A marker placed on the winning number by the dealer at roulette.
- 16Ellipsis of dolly shop.
- 17An old gambling device, found in dolly shops, with the figure of an old man or "dolly", and a spiral hole down which a dropped marble would proceed to one of a set of numbered holes.
Etymology
From doll + -y, from the given name Dorothy, originally applied either to a woman or female pet or to a children's toy, and expanded to refer to various types of contrivances or devices. The Online Etymology Dictionary, while considering the reason for applying it to such devices unobvious, compares how the names jack, jenny and jimmy are also applied to devices.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddolly,dloly,dollyy,doly,dolyl,odlly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for dolly
Misspelling Variants of "dolly"
Frequency rank: #14,108 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: