estoppel

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for estoppel is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #69,033 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A legal principle in the law of equity that prevents a party from asserting otherwise valid legal rights against another party because of conduct by the first party, or circumstances to which the f...".

estoppel doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English *estoppel (found only as stoppel, stoppell, stopple, etc.), probably from Old French estoupail, estopail, estopaille, a bung made of oakum (étoupe), from Latin stuppa ("flax, tow"), from Ancient Greek στύππη (stuppē). The correct English form is estoppel, spelled E-S-T-O-P-P-E-L.