gospel
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "gospel", 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 "gospel" 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 "gospel" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
gospel is aEnglishnoun. It means: The first section of the Christian New Testament scripture, comprising the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, concerned with the birth, ministry, passion, and resurrection of Jesus. Pronounced /ˈɡɒspəl/. It ranks #5,328 in English word frequency. Often confused with Gopal and gasped.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gospel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡɒspəl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #5,328 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gospel is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡɒspəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,328 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for gospel, with forms such as "ggospel", "gopsel", and "gosepl". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "Gopal", "gasped", "Goshen", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gospel, gospell, godspel, godspell, goddspell, from Old English godspell (“gospel”), corresponding to God + spell (“talk, tale, story”), literally “the message of God”, believed to be an alteration of earlier *gōdspell (literally “good n… 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 gospel, spelled G-O-S-P-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The first section of the Christian New Testament scripture, comprising the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, concerned with the birth, ministry, passion, and resurrection of Jesus.
- 2An account of those aspects of Jesus' life, generally written during the first several centuries of the Common Era.
- 3The teaching of Divine grace as distinguished from the Law or Divine commandments.
- 4A message expected to have positive reception or effect, one promoted as offering important (or even infallible) guiding principles.
- 5That which is absolutely authoritative (definitive).
- 6Gospel music.
Etymology
From Middle English gospel, gospell, godspel, godspell, goddspell, from Old English godspell (“gospel”), corresponding to God + spell (“talk, tale, story”), literally “the message of God”, believed to be an alteration of earlier *gōdspell (literally “good news”), used to translate ecclesiastical Latin bona annūntiātiō, itself a translation of Ecclesiastical Latin ēvangelium / Ancient Greek εὐαγγέλιον (euangélion, “evangel”, literally “good news”) (English evangel). Compare Old Saxon gōdspel and godspell (“gospel”), Old High German and Middle High German gotspel (“gospel”), Icelandic guðspjall (“gospel”), and the modern calque Malayalam സുവിശേഷം (suviśēṣaṁ).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ggospel,gopsel,gosepl,gospell,gosple,gosppel,gosspel,gsopel,ogspel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for gospel
Misspelling Variants of "gospel"
Frequency rank: #5,328 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "gospel"?
What does "gospel" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "gospel"?
How do you pronounce "gospel"?
What is the origin of the word "gospel"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: