gauge
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 "gauge", 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 "gauge" 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 "gauge" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
gauge is aEnglishnoun. It means: A measure; a standard of measure; an instrument to determine dimensions, distance, or capacity; a standard Pronounced /ˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/. It ranks #6,912 in English word frequency. Often confused with gave and glue.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gauge |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,912 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gauge is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,912 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.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for gauge, with forms such as "aguge", "gague", and "gaueg". 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, "gave", "glue", "gaze", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gauge, gaugen, from Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French gauger (compare Modern French jauger from Old French jaugier), from gauge (“gauging rod”), from Frankish *galga (“measuring rod, pole”), from Proto-Germanic *galgô (“pole, stake, cros… 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 gauge, spelled G-A-U-G-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A measure; a standard of measure; an instrument to determine dimensions, distance, or capacity; a standard
- 2An act of measuring.
- 3An estimate.
- 4Any instrument for ascertaining or regulating the level, state, dimensions or forms of things
- 5A thickness of sheet metal or wire designated by any of several numbering schemes, with lower numbers indicating larger size.
- 6Ellipsis of track gauge.
- 7Ellipsis of loading gauge.
- 8A semi-norm; a function that assigns a non-negative size to all vectors in a vector space.
- 9The number of stitches per inch, centimetre, or other unit of distance.
- 10Relative positions of two or more vessels with reference to the wind.
- 11The depth to which a vessel sinks in the water.
- 12The quantity of plaster of Paris used with common plaster to make it set more quickly.
- 13That part of a shingle, slate, or tile, which is exposed to the weather, when laid; also, one course of such shingles, slates, or tiles.
- 14A unit of measurement which describes how many spheres of bore diameter of a shotgun can be had from one pound of lead; 12 gauge is roughly equivalent to .75 caliber.
- 15A shotgun (synecdoche for 12 gauge shotgun, the most common chambering for combat and hunting shotguns).
- 16A tunnel-like ear piercing consisting of a hollow ring embedded in the lobe.
- 17Cannabis.
Etymology
From Middle English gauge, gaugen, from Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French gauger (compare Modern French jauger from Old French jaugier), from gauge (“gauging rod”), from Frankish *galga (“measuring rod, pole”), from Proto-Germanic *galgô (“pole, stake, cross”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰalgʰ-, *ǵʰalg- (“perch, long switch”). Cognate with Old High German galgo, Old Frisian galga, Old English ġealga (“cross-beam, gallows”), Old Norse galgi (“cross-beam, gallows”), Old Norse gelgja (“pole, perch”). Doublet of gallows.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aguge,gague,gaueg,gaugge,ggauge,guage
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for gauge
Misspelling Variants of "gauge"
Frequency rank: #6,912 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: