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emperor

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

7 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "emperor", 7-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 "emperor" 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 "emperor" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

emperor is aEnglishnoun. It means: The male monarch or ruler of an empire. Pronounced /ˈɛmpəɹə/. It ranks #4,667 in English word frequency.

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Key facts for emperor
PropertyValue
Headwordemperor
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈɛmpəɹə/
Letters7
Frequency rank#4,667
Misspellings tracked10
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of emperor in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for emperor is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɛmpəɹə/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,667 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for emperor, with forms such as "emepror", "emmperor", and "empeorr". 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 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: From Middle English emperour, from Anglo-Norman emperour, from Latin imperātorem, derived from imperō (“to command”). Doublet of imperator. Displaced earlier Old English casere, from Latin Caesar. 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 emperor, spelled E-M-P-E-R-O-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    The male monarch or ruler of an empire.
  2. 2
    Any monarch ruling an empire, irrespective of gender, with "empress" contrasting to mean the consort of an emperor.
  3. 3
    Specifically, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire; the world-monarch.
  4. 4
    The fourth trump or major arcana card of the tarot deck.
  5. 5
    A large, relatively valuable marble in children's games.
  6. 6
    Any fish of the family Lethrinidae.
  7. 7
    Any of various butterflies of the subfamily Charaxinae.
  8. 8
    Any of various large dragonflies of the cosmopolitan genus Anax.
  9. 9
    An emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri).

Etymology

From Middle English emperour, from Anglo-Norman emperour, from Latin imperātorem, derived from imperō (“to command”). Doublet of imperator. Displaced earlier Old English casere, from Latin Caesar.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: emepror,emmperor,empeorr,emperorr,emperro,emperror,empperor,empreor,epmeror,meperor

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for emperor

Misspelling Variants of "emperor"

emepror7emmperor8empeorr7emperorr8emperro7emperror8empperor8empreor7
Misspelling Variants of "emperor"

Frequency rank: #4,667 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "emperor"?
"emperor" is spelled E-M-P-E-R-O-R. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈɛmpəɹə/.
What does "emperor" mean?
As a noun, "emperor" means: The male monarch or ruler of an empire.
What are common misspellings of "emperor"?
Common misspellings include "emepror", "emmperor", "empeorr", "emperorr", "emperro". The correct spelling is "emperor".
How do you pronounce "emperor"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "emperor" is /ˈɛmpəɹə/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "emperor"?
From Middle English emperour, from Anglo-Norman emperour, from Latin imperātorem, derived from imperō (“to command”). Doublet of imperator. Displaced earlier Old English casere, from Latin Caesar. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.