generic
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "generic", 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 "generic" 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 "generic" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
generic is anEnglishadj. It means: Very broad; pertaining or appropriate to large classes or groups as opposed to specific instances. Pronounced /dʒᵻˈnɛ.ɹɪk/. It ranks #5,966 in English word frequency. Often confused with genetic and genesis.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | generic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /dʒᵻˈnɛ.ɹɪk/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #5,966 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for generic is 7 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dʒᵻˈnɛ.ɹɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,966 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 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 generic, with forms such as "egneric", "geenric", and "geneirc". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "genetic", "genesis", "genomic", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French générique, from Latin genus (“genus, kind”) + -ic; thus morphologically parallel with, and a doublet of, general. 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 generic, spelled G-E-N-E-R-I-C, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Very broad; pertaining or appropriate to large classes or groups as opposed to specific instances.
- 2Lacking in precision, often in an evasive fashion; vague; imprecise.
- 3Of a product or drug, not having a brand name; nonproprietary in design or contents; fungible with the rest of its class.
- 4Pertaining to genera of life instead of particular species thereof.
- 5Relating to gender.
- 6Specifying neither masculine nor feminine; epicene; unisex.
- 7Of a procedure, written so as to operate on any data type, the type required being passed as a parameter.
- 8Of a point, having coordinates that are algebraically independent over the base field.
- 9Relating to genre.
- 10Having no distinguishing characteristics; unoriginal.
Etymology
From Middle French générique, from Latin genus (“genus, kind”) + -ic; thus morphologically parallel with, and a doublet of, general.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: egneric,geenric,geneirc,generci,genericc,generric,genneric,genreic,ggeneric,gneeric
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for generic
Misspelling Variants of "generic"
Frequency rank: #5,966 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: