gossip
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "gossip", 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 "gossip" 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 "gossip" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
gossip is aEnglishnoun. It means: Someone who likes to talk about other people's private or personal business. Pronounced /ˈɡɒsɪp/. It ranks #8,547 in English word frequency. Often confused with goss.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gossip |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡɒsɪp/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #8,547 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gossip is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡɒsɪp/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,547 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for gossip, with forms such as "ggossip", "gosip", and "gosisp". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "goss", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English godsybbe, godsib (“a close friend or relation, a confidant; a godparent”), from Old English godsibb (“godparent, sponsor”), equivalent to god + sib. Doublet of godsib. For sense evolution to "gossip, discussing others' personal affairs,"… 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 gossip, spelled G-O-S-S-I-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Someone who likes to talk about other people's private or personal business.
- 2Idle talk about someone’s private or personal matters, especially about someone not present.
- 3Idle conversation in general.
- 4A genre in contemporary media, usually focused on the personal affairs of celebrities.
- 5Communication done using a gossip protocol.
- 6A sponsor; a godfather or godmother; the godparent of one's child or godchild, or the parent of one's godchild.
- 7A familiar acquaintance.
- 8Title used with the name of one's child's godparent or of a friend.
Etymology
From Middle English godsybbe, godsib (“a close friend or relation, a confidant; a godparent”), from Old English godsibb (“godparent, sponsor”), equivalent to god + sib. Doublet of godsib. For sense evolution to "gossip, discussing others' personal affairs," compare French commérage.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ggossip,gosip,gosisp,gossipp,gosspi,gsosip,ogssip
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for gossip
Misspelling Variants of "gossip"
Frequency rank: #8,547 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: