drag
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 "drag", 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 "drag" 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 "drag" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
drag is aEnglishnoun. It means: Resistance of a fluid to something moving through it. Pronounced /ˈdɹæɡ/. It ranks #4,370 in English word frequency. Often confused with dry and dug.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drag |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɹæɡ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,370 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for drag is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɹæɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,370 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 26 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 drag, with forms such as "darg", "ddrag", and "dragg". 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, "dry", "dug", "Dre", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English draggen (“to drag”), early Middle English dragen (“to draw, carry”), confluence of Old English dragan (“to drag, draw, draw oneself, go, protract”) and Old Norse draga (“to draw, attract”); both from Proto-Germanic *draganą (“to draw, dr… 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 drag, spelled D-R-A-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Resistance of a fluid to something moving through it.
- 2Any force acting in opposition to the motion of an object.
- 3A device dragged along the bottom of a body of water in search of something, e.g. a dead body, or in fishing.
- 4A systematic search for someone over a wide area, especially by the authorities; a dragnet.
- 5A double drum-stroke played at twice the speed of the context in which it is placed.
- 6A puff on a cigarette or joint.
- 7Someone or something that is annoying or frustrating, or disappointing; an obstacle to progress or enjoyment.
- 8A long open horse-drawn carriage with transverse or side seats.
- 9A street.
- 10The scent-path left by dragging a fox, or some other substance such as aniseed, for training hounds to follow scents.
- 11A large amount of backspin on the cue ball, causing the cue ball to slow down.
- 12A heavy harrow for breaking up ground.
- 13A kind of sledge for conveying heavy objects; also, a kind of low car or handcart.
- 14The bottom part of a sand casting mold.
- 15A steel instrument for completing the dressing of soft stone.
- 16The difference between the speed of a screw steamer under sail and that of the screw when the ship outruns the screw; or between the propulsive effects of the different floats of a paddle wheel.
- 17Anything towed in the water to retard a ship's progress, or to keep her head up to the wind; especially, a canvas bag with a hooped mouth (drag sail), so used.
- 18A pulled load.
- 19A skid or shoe for retarding the motion of a carriage wheel.
- 20Motion affected with slowness and difficulty, as if clogged.
- 21Witch house music.
- 22The last position in a line of hikers.
- 23A push somewhat under the centre of the cue ball, causing it to follow the object ball a short way.
- 24A device for guiding wood to the saw.
- 25A mailcoach.
- 26A prison sentence of three months.
Etymology
From Middle English draggen (“to drag”), early Middle English dragen (“to draw, carry”), confluence of Old English dragan (“to drag, draw, draw oneself, go, protract”) and Old Norse draga (“to draw, attract”); both from Proto-Germanic *draganą (“to draw, drag”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰregʰ- (“to draw, drag”). Verb sense influenced due to association with the noun drag (“that which is hauled or dragged”), related to Low German dragge (“a drag-anchor, grapnel”). Cognate with Danish drægge (“to dredge”), Danish drage (“to draw, attract”), Swedish dragga (“to drag, drag anchor, sweep”), Swedish draga (“to draw, go”), Icelandic draga (“to drag, pull”). Doublet of draw.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: darg,ddrag,dragg,drga,drrag,rdag
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for drag
Misspelling Variants of "drag"
Frequency rank: #4,370 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: