epistle
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 "epistle", 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 "epistle" 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 "epistle" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
epistle is aEnglishnoun. It means: A literary composition in the form of a letter or series of letters, especially one in verse. Pronounced /ɪˈpɪsl̩/. Often confused with episode.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | epistle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɪˈpɪsl̩/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #32,795 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for epistle is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪˈpɪsl̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #32,795 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 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 epistle, with forms such as "eipstle", "epislte", and "episstle". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "episode", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *h₁epi The noun is derived from Middle English epistel, epistole, pistel (“letter; literary work in letter form; written legend or story; spoken communication; (Christianity) one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament; extract from such… 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 epistle, spelled E-P-I-S-T-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A literary composition in the form of a letter or series of letters, especially one in verse.
- 2A letter, especially one which is formal or issued publicly.
- 3A letter, especially one which is formal or issued publicly.
- 4One of the books of the New Testament which was originally a letter issued by an apostle to an individual or a community.
- 5An extract from a New Testament epistle (noun sense 3.1) or book other than a gospel which is read during a church service, chiefly the Eucharist.
Etymology
PIE word *h₁epi The noun is derived from Middle English epistel, epistole, pistel (“letter; literary work in letter form; written legend or story; spoken communication; (Christianity) one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament; extract from such a letter read as part of the Mass”) [and other forms], and then partly: * from Old English epistol, epistola, pistol (“letter, epistle”), from Latin epistola (“letter, epistle; literary work in letter form”) (whence Late Latin epistola (“one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament”)), from Ancient Greek ἐπῐστολή (epĭstolḗ, “letter; message”), from ἐπῐστέλλω (epĭstéllō, “to inform by, or to send, a letter or message”) (from ἐπῐ- (epĭ-, prefix meaning ‘on, upon’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi (“at; near; on”)) + στέλλω (stéllō, “to dispatch, send”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to locate; to place, put”))) + -η (-ē, suffix forming action nouns); and * from Anglo-Norman epistle, and Middle French epistle, epistele, epistole (“letter; (Christianity) one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament; extract from such a letter read as part of the Mass”) (modern French épître), from Latin epistola (see above). The verb is derived from the noun.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eipstle,epislte,episstle,epistel,epistlle,episttle,epitsle,eppistle,epsitle,peistle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for epistle
Misspelling Variants of "epistle"
Frequency rank: #32,795 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: