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garage

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

6 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "garage", 6-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 "garage" 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 "garage" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

garage is aEnglishnoun. It means: A building (or section of a building) used to store a car or cars, tools and other miscellaneous items. Pronounced /ˈɡæ.ɹɪdʒ/. It ranks #4,674 in English word frequency. Often confused with gare and grade.

Key facts for garage
PropertyValue
Headwordgarage
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈɡæ.ɹɪdʒ/
Letters6
Frequency rank#4,674
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs12
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of garage in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for garage is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡæ.ɹɪdʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,674 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for garage, with forms such as "agrage", "gaarge", and "garaeg". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "gare", "grade", "grace", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French garage (“keeping under cover, protection, shelter”), derivative of French garer (“to keep under cover, dock, shunt, guard, keep”), from Middle French garer, garrer, guerrer; partly from Old French garir, warir (from Old Frankish *warjan… 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 garage, spelled G-A-R-A-G-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A building (or section of a building) used to store a car or cars, tools and other miscellaneous items.
  2. 2
    A place where cars are serviced and repaired.
  3. 3
    A petrol filling station.
  4. 4
    A shed for housing an airship or aeroplane or a launchable missile; a hangar.
  5. 5
    A side way or space in a canal to enable vessels to pass each other; a siding.
  6. 6
    A type of guitar rock music, personified by amateur bands playing in the basement or garage; garage rock.
  7. 7
    A type of electronic dance music related to house music, with warped and time-stretched sounds; UK garage.

Etymology

Borrowed from French garage (“keeping under cover, protection, shelter”), derivative of French garer (“to keep under cover, dock, shunt, guard, keep”), from Middle French garer, garrer, guerrer; partly from Old French garir, warir (from Old Frankish *warjan); and partly from Old French varer (“to fight, defend oneself, protect”), from Old Norse varask (“to defend oneself”), reflexive of vara (“to ware, watch out, defend”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *warjaną (“to defend, ward off”), *warōną (“to watch, protect”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to close, cover, protect, save, defend”).

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: agrage,gaarge,garaeg,garagge,gargae,garrage,ggarage,graage

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for garage

Misspelling Variants of "garage"

agrage6gaarge6garaeg6garagge7gargae6garrage7ggarage7graage6
Misspelling Variants of "garage"

Frequency rank: #4,674 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "garage"?
"garage" is spelled G-A-R-A-G-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈɡæ.ɹɪdʒ/.
What does "garage" mean?
As a noun, "garage" means: A building (or section of a building) used to store a car or cars, tools and other miscellaneous items.
What words are commonly confused with "garage"?
"garage" is commonly confused with "gare", "grade", "grace". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "garage"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "garage" is /ˈɡæ.ɹɪdʒ/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "garage"?
Borrowed from French garage (“keeping under cover, protection, shelter”), derivative of French garer (“to keep under cover, dock, shunt, guard, keep”), from Middle French garer, garrer, guerrer; partly from Old French garir, warir (from Old Franki... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.