folio
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "folio", 5-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 "folio" 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 "folio" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
folio is aEnglishnoun. It means: A leaf of a book or manuscript. Pronounced /ˈfəʊlɪəʊ/. Often confused with foo and folk.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | folio |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈfəʊlɪəʊ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #25,063 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for folio is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈfəʊlɪəʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #25,063 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for folio, with forms such as "ffolio", "floio", and "foilo". 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, "foo", "folk", "FOMO", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English folio (“leaf of a book”), borrowed from Medieval Latin foliō, Late Latin foliō, Latin foliō, the ablative singular form of Late Latin folium (“leaf or sheet of paper”), Latin folium (“leaf of a plant”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-Europea… 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 folio, spelled F-O-L-I-O, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A leaf of a book or manuscript.
- 2A page of a book, that is, one side of a leaf of a book.
- 3A page number. The even folios are on the left-hand pages and the odd folios on the right-hand pages.
- 4A sheet of paper folded in half.
- 5A book made of sheets of paper each folded in half (two leaves or four pages to the sheet); hence, a book of the largest kind, exceeding 30 centimetres in height.
- 6A wrapper for loose papers.
- 7A page in an account book; sometimes, two opposite pages bearing the same serial number.
- 8A protective case with a flap that folds to cover the screen of a mobile device.
- 9A leaf containing a certain number of words; hence, a certain number of words in a piece of writing, as in England, in law proceedings 72, and in chancery, 90; in New York, 100 words.
Etymology
From Middle English folio (“leaf of a book”), borrowed from Medieval Latin foliō, Late Latin foliō, Latin foliō, the ablative singular form of Late Latin folium (“leaf or sheet of paper”), Latin folium (“leaf of a plant”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“bloom, flower”). Doublet of foil and folium, and distantly related to phyllo and phyllon. Senses 1, 2, 3.1, 5, and 6 relating to a leaf or page are derived from Medieval Latin foliō in references; sense 5 (“page in an account book”) may be derived from Italian foglio (“rectangular sheet of paper”), from Latin folium. Senses 3.2 and 3.3 relating to a paper size are from Italian in foglio or its etymon Latin in foliō.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ffolio,floio,foilo,follio,foloi,oflio
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for folio
Misspelling Variants of "folio"
Frequency rank: #25,063 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index: