even
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "even", 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 "even" 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 "even" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
even is anEnglishadj. It means: Flat and level. Pronounced /ˈiː.vən/. It ranks #108 in English word frequency. Often confused with eye and evo.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | even |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈiː.vən/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #108 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for even is 4 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈiː.vən/. Corpus data places it at rank #108 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for even, with forms such as "eevn", "evenn", and "evne". 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, "eye", "evo", "exe", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English even, from Old English efn (“flat; level, even, equal”), from Proto-West Germanic *ebn, from Proto-Germanic *ebnaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(h₁)em-no- (“equal, straight; flat, level, even”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian íeuwen (“even… 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 even, spelled E-V-E-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Flat and level.
- 2Without great variation.
- 3Equal in proportion, quantity, size, etc.
- 4Of an integer, divisible by two.
- 5Of a number, convenient for rounding other numbers to; for example, ending in a zero.
- 6On equal monetary terms; neither owing nor being owed.
- 7On equal terms of a moral sort; quits.
- 8Parallel; on a level; reaching the same limit.
- 9Without an irregularity, flaw, or blemish; pure.
- 10Associate; fellow; of the same condition.
Etymology
From Middle English even, from Old English efn (“flat; level, even, equal”), from Proto-West Germanic *ebn, from Proto-Germanic *ebnaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(h₁)em-no- (“equal, straight; flat, level, even”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian íeuwen (“even, flat”), West Frisian even (“even”), Alemannic German ëben (“even”), Cimbrian ébane (“even”), Dutch even (“even, equal, same”), effen (“leveled”), German eben (“even, flat, level”), Danish jævn (“even, flat, smooth”), Icelandic jafn (“even”), Norwegian Bokmål jevn (“even, smooth”), Norwegian Nynorsk jamn (“even, smooth”), Swedish jämn (“even, level, smooth”), Gothic 𐌹𐌱𐌽𐍃 (ibns, “even”), Old Cornish eun (“equal, right”) (attested in Vocabularium Cornicum eun-hinsic (“iustus, i. e., just”)), Old Breton eun (“equal, right”) (attested in Eutychius Glossary eunt (“aequus, i. e., equal”)), Middle Breton effn, Breton eeun, Sanskrit अम्नस् (amnás, “(adverb) just, just now; at once”). The verb descends from Middle English evenen, from Old English efnan; the adverb from Middle English evene, from Old English efne. The traditional proposal connecting the Germanic adjective with the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂eym- (Latin imāgō (“picture, image, likeness, copy”), Latin aemulus (“competitor, rival”), Sanskrit यम (yamá, “pair, twin”)) is problematic from a phonological point of view. For the meaning development compare with Latin aequus (“equal, level, even, flat, horizontal”), Russian ро́вный (róvnyj, “even, level, flat, smooth”), ра́вный (rávnyj, “equal”), по́ровну (pórovnu, “in equal parts”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eevn,evenn,evne,evven,veen
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for even
Misspelling Variants of "even"
Frequency rank: #108 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: