gooseberry
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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10 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "gooseberry", 10-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 "gooseberry" 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 "gooseberry" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
gooseberry is aEnglishnoun. It means: A fruit of species Ribes uva-crispa, related to the currant. Pronounced /ˈɡusˌbɛɹi/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gooseberry |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡusˌbɛɹi/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #51,143 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gooseberry is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡusˌbɛɹi/. Corpus data places it at rank #51,143 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 18 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for gooseberry in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From goose + berry. It is possible that the first element was originally something related to the gros- of French groseille and/or the kruis- of Dutch kruisbes but has been altered by folk etymology. 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 gooseberry, spelled G-O-O-S-E-B-E-R-R-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A fruit of species Ribes uva-crispa, related to the currant.
- 2Any other plant or fruit in the subgenus Grossularia, distinguished from currants by bearing spines, including Ribes hirtellum (American gooseberry).
- 3Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 4Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 5Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 6Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 7Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 8Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 9Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 10Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 11Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 12Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 13Any of several other plants that are not closely related but bear fruit in some way similar:
- 14A chaperone.
- 15An additional person who is neither necessary nor wanted in a given situation.
- 16A fool.
- 17A fantastic story; a tall tale; a hoax.
- 18A testicle.
Etymology
From goose + berry. It is possible that the first element was originally something related to the gros- of French groseille and/or the kruis- of Dutch kruisbes but has been altered by folk etymology.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #51,143 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: