Great Britain
"great-britain" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Great Britain” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a proper noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large island (sometimes also including some of the surrounding smaller islands) off the north-west coast of Western Europe, made up of England, Scotland, and Wales.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Great Britain” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Great Britain is 13 letters long, classified as a proper noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for Great Britain in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Of the island of Great Britain, to disambiguate Britain from Brittany, i.e. Lesser Britain. From Middle English Great Brittaigne, Grete Britaigne, Grete breteygne, grete Bretayne, grete breteyne, paralleling Anglo-Norman Grande Brettayne and c. 12th-century… The correct English form is Great Britain, spelled G-R-E-A-T- -B-R-I-T-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1A large island (sometimes also including some of the surrounding smaller islands) off the north-west coast of Western Europe, made up of England, Scotland, and Wales.
- 2The United Kingdom, a kingdom and country in Northern Europe including the island of Great Britain as well as Northern Ireland on the northeastern portion of the island of Ireland.
- 3A former kingdom existing on the island of Great Britain from 1707 to 1801, consisting of England, Scotland and Wales; it was in personal union with the Kingdom of Ireland and later merged with it. Official name: Kingdom of Great Britain.
- 4England, Scotland and Wales in combination, to the exclusion of Northern Ireland.
- 5The United Kingdom national team (often inclusive of Northern Ireland).
Etymology
Of the island of Great Britain, to disambiguate Britain from Brittany, i.e. Lesser Britain. From Middle English Great Brittaigne, Grete Britaigne, Grete breteygne, grete Bretayne, grete breteyne, paralleling Anglo-Norman Grande Brettayne and c. 12th-century Medieval Latin Britannia Maior. Equivalent to Great + Britain. King James VI and I in 1604 proclaimed himself “King of Great Britain, France and Ireland”.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “Great Britain”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-R-E-A-T- -B-R-I-T-A-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.