earphone
/ˈɪə(ɹ)fəʊn/
"earphone" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“earphone” is uncommon English (frequency #53,511 among 18,836 “E” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,511
- frequency rank, English
- 18,836
- “E” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A transducer that converts electric signals into sound and is held near the ear, especially as part of a telephone; an earpiece or headphone.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | earphone |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɪə(ɹ)fəʊn/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #53,511 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “earphone” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
earphone is uncommon English at frequency #53,511 among 18,836 “E” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɪə(ɹ)fəʊn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A transducer that converts electric signals into sound and is held near the ear, especially as part of a telephone; an earpiece or headphone.".
Zero misspellings are on record for earphone in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From ear + phone. The correct English form is earphone, spelled E-A-R-P-H-O-N-E.
Definition
- 1A transducer that converts electric signals into sound and is held near the ear, especially as part of a telephone; an earpiece or headphone.
Etymology
From ear + phone.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Using “earphone”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-A-R-P-H-O-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɪə(ɹ)fəʊn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.