fox
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "fox", 3-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 "fox" 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 "fox" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
fox is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small-to-medium-sized canine mammal, related to dogs and wolves, with a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail, of the following groups: Pronounced /fɒks/. It ranks #2,204 in English word frequency. Often confused with fu and FS.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fox |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fɒks/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2,204 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fox is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɒks/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,204 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 17 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for fox in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fu", "FS", "FP", 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 *púḱsos Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz Old English fox Middle English fox English fox From Middle English fox, from Old English fox (“fox”), from Proto-West Germanic *fuhs, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz (“fox”), from Proto-Indo-Euro… 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 fox, spelled F-O-X, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small-to-medium-sized canine mammal, related to dogs and wolves, with a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail, of the following groups:
- 2A small-to-medium-sized canine mammal, related to dogs and wolves, with a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail, of the following groups:
- 3A small-to-medium-sized canine mammal, related to dogs and wolves, with a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail, of the following groups:
- 4The fur of a fox.
- 5A fox terrier.
- 6A flying fox.
- 7The gemmeous dragonet, a fish, Callionymus lyra, so called from its yellow color.
- 8A cunning person.
- 9A physically attractive person, typically a woman.
- 10A person with reddish brown hair, typically a woman.
- 11A small strand of rope made by twisting several rope-yarns together. Used for seizings, mats, sennits, and gaskets.
- 12A wedge driven into the split end of a bolt to tighten it.
- 13A hidden radio transmitter, finding which is the goal of radiosport.
- 14The fourteenth Lenormand card.
- 15A sword; so called from the stamp of a fox on the blade, or perhaps of a wolf taken for a fox.
- 16Air-to-air weapon launched.
- 17Someone who fuses many different influences and concepts in their philosophy or worldview.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *púḱsos Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz Old English fox Middle English fox English fox From Middle English fox, from Old English fox (“fox”), from Proto-West Germanic *fuhs, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz (“fox”), from Proto-Indo-European *púḱsos (“the tailed one”), possibly from *puḱ- (“tail”). Cognate with Scots fox (“fox”), North Frisian foos, fos (“fox”), Saterland Frisian Foaks (“fox”), West Frisian foks (“fox”), Dutch vos (“fox”), Low German vos (“fox”), German Fuchs (“fox”), Icelandic fóa (“fox”), Tocharian B päkā (“tail, chowrie”), Russian пух (pux, “down, fluff”), Sanskrit पुच्छ (púccha) (whence Torwali پوش (pūš, “fox”), Hindi पूंछ (pūñch, “tail”)). Philosophical sense from the 1953 essay The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin. Military aviation sense from the pre-NATO military spelling alphabet where Fox represented F and was short for 'to fire'.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #2,204 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index: