east
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 "east", 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 "east" 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 "east" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
east is aEnglishnoun. It means: The direction of the earth's rotation, specifically 90°. Pronounced /iːst/. It ranks #709 in English word frequency. Often confused with et and ES.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | east |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /iːst/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #709 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for east is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /iːst/. Corpus data places it at rank #709 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for east, with forms such as "aest", "easst", and "eastt". 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, "et", "ES", "eat", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English est, from Old English ēast, from Proto-West Germanic *austr, from Proto-Germanic *austrą, from Proto-Germanic *austraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwsteros (“east”). Cognates Cognate with Scots aist (“east”), North Frisian uast, ååst, ö… 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 east, spelled E-A-S-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The direction of the earth's rotation, specifically 90°.
- 2The eastern region or area; the inhabitants thereof.
- 3In a church: the direction of the altar and chancel; the direction faced by the priest when celebrating ad orientem.
Etymology
From Middle English est, from Old English ēast, from Proto-West Germanic *austr, from Proto-Germanic *austrą, from Proto-Germanic *austraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwsteros (“east”). Cognates Cognate with Scots aist (“east”), North Frisian uast, ååst, ööst (“east”), Saterland Frisian Aaste (“east”), West Frisian east (“east”), Dutch oost (“east”), German Ost (“east”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål øst (“east”), Faroese eystur (“east”), Icelandic austur (“east”), Norwegian Nynorsk aust, øst (“east”), Swedish ost, öst, öster (“east”); also with Avestan 𐬎𐬱𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬭𐬀 (ušastara, “eastern”), Latin auster (“south”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aest,easst,eastt,esat
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for east
Misspelling Variants of "east"
Frequency rank: #709 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: