emeritus
/ɪˈmɛɹɪtəs/
Detailed reference entry for the English word "emeritus", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "emeritus" 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 "emeritus" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“emeritus” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #20,912 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #20,912
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Retired, but retaining an honorific version of a previous title.
Compare similar words
See how emeritus compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | emeritus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɪˈmɛɹɪtəs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #20,912 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “emeritus” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for emeritus is 8 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪˈmɛɹɪtəs/. Corpus data places it at rank #20,912 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Retired, but retaining an honorific version of a previous title.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for emeritus, with forms such as "eemritus", "emeirtus", and "emeritsu". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin ēmeritus (“(having been) earned, (having been) merited; (having been) served, having done one’s service”), the perfect passive participle of ēmereō (“to earn, merit; to gain by service; (military) to complete … 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 emeritus, spelled E-M-E-R-I-T-U-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Retired, but retaining an honorific version of a previous title.
Etymology
The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin ēmeritus (“(having been) earned, (having been) merited; (having been) served, having done one’s service”), the perfect passive participle of ēmereō (“to earn, merit; to gain by service; (military) to complete one’s obligation to serve, to serve out one’s time”), from ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + mereō (“to deserve, merit; to acquire, earn, get, obtain; to render service to; to serve”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- (“to allot; to assign”)). The noun is derived from the adjective. The plural form emeriti is borrowed from Latin ēmeritī.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eemritus,emeirtus,emeritsu,emerittus,emerituss,emeriuts,emerritus,emertius,emmeritus,emreitus,meeritus
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of emeritus - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “emeritus, English word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/en/word/emeritus
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “emeritus”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-M-E-R-I-T-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɪˈmɛɹɪtəs/ (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
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: