explore
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "explore", 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 "explore" 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 "explore" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
explore is aEnglishverb. It means: To seek for something or after someone. Pronounced /ɪkˈsplɔː/. It ranks #4,234 in English word frequency. Often confused with export and exposé.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | explore |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɪkˈsplɔː/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #4,234 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for explore is 7 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪkˈsplɔː/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,234 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 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 explore, with forms such as "epxlore", "exlpore", and "expllore". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "export", "exposé", "explorer", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs Proto-Italic *eɣ Latin ex Latin ex- Latin plōrō Latin explōrōder. Middle French explorerder. English explore From Middle French explorer, from Latin explōrāre (“to… 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 explore, spelled E-X-P-L-O-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To seek for something or after someone.
- 2To examine or investigate something systematically.
- 3To travel somewhere in search of discovery.
- 4To examine diagnostically.
- 5To (seek) experience first hand.
- 6To be engaged exploring in any of the above senses.
- 7To wander without any particular aim or purpose.
- 8To seek sexual variety, to sow one's wild oats.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs Proto-Italic *eɣ Latin ex Latin ex- Latin plōrō Latin explōrōder. Middle French explorerder. English explore From Middle French explorer, from Latin explōrāre (“to investigate, search out”), itself said to be originally a hunters' term meaning "to set up a loud cry", from ex- (“out”) + plōrāre (“to cry”), but the second element is also explained as "to make to flow" (from pluere (“to flow”)).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: epxlore,exlpore,expllore,exploer,explorre,explroe,expolre,expplore,exxplore,xeplore
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for explore
Misspelling Variants of "explore"
Frequency rank: #4,234 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our English index: