earth
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "earth", 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 "earth" 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 "earth" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
earth is aEnglishname. It means: Alternative letter-case form of Earth; our planet, third out from the Sun. Pronounced /ɜːθ/. It ranks #923 in English word frequency. Often confused with eat and eth.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | earth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /ɜːθ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #923 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for earth is 5 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɜːθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #923 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Alternative letter-case form of Earth; our planet, third out from the Sun.".
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for earth, with forms such as "aerth", "earht", and "earrth". 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 19 confusable-pair relationships, "eat", "eth", "east", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English erthe, from Old English eorþe, from Proto-West Germanic *erþu, from Proto-Germanic *erþō (“dirt, ground, earth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁érteh₂ (“earth”). Cognates Cognate with Scots erd, yerd, yird, yirth (“earth, loam, mould, soil… 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 earth, spelled E-A-R-T-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Alternative letter-case form of Earth; our planet, third out from the Sun.
Etymology
From Middle English erthe, from Old English eorþe, from Proto-West Germanic *erþu, from Proto-Germanic *erþō (“dirt, ground, earth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁érteh₂ (“earth”). Cognates Cognate with Scots erd, yerd, yird, yirth (“earth, loam, mould, soil; ground”), Yola eard, eart, eord, eorth, erth (“earth”), North Frisian eerd, eerde, iarde, Iart, iir, jard, örd, Öört (“earth; world”), Saterland Frisian Idde, Äid, Äide (“earth; soil; ground”), West Frisian ierde (“earth; soil; ground”), Alemannic German Ëërde (“earth”), Bavarian Erd, Erdn (“world; soil; ground”), Central Franconian Ääd (“earth”), Cimbrian èerda (“earth”), Dutch aard, aarde (“earth”), German Erde (“earth; soil; ground; world”), German Low German Eer (“earth”), Limburgish eerd (“earth”), Luxembourgish Äerd (“earth; soil”), Vilamovian Ād (“earth”), Yiddish ערד (erd, “earth; soil”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish jord (“earth”), Faroese jørð (“earth”), Icelandic jörð (“earth”), Norn yurn (“the earth”), Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌸𐌰 (airþa, “earth”); also Latin ōra (“border, edge, rim”), Breton erv (“ridge between furrows”), Welsh erw (“acre”), Ancient Greek ἔραζε (éraze, “to the ground”), Lithuanian erdvė (“expanse, space”), Albanian varr, vorr (“grave”), Tocharian B āre (“dust, loose earth”), Sanskrit उर्वरा (urvarā, “fertile soil, field yielding crops”), Hittite 𒅕𒄩𒀸 (er-ḫa-aš /erḫaš/, “border, boundary, line”). Probably unrelated, but of unknown etymology, is Old Armenian երկիր (erkir, “earth”). Likewise, the phonologically similar Proto-Semitic *ʔarṣ́- – whence Arabic أَرْض (ʔarḍ), Hebrew אֶרֶץ (ʾereṣ) – is probably unrelated.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aerth,earht,earrth,earthh,eartth,eatrh,erath
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for earth
Misspelling Variants of "earth"
Frequency rank: #923 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "earth"?
What does "earth" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "earth"?
How do you pronounce "earth"?
What is the origin of the word "earth"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: