guitar
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "guitar", 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 "guitar" 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 "guitar" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
guitar is aEnglishnoun. It means: A stringed musical instrument, of European origin, usually with a fretted fingerboard and six strings, played with the fingers or a plectrum (guitar pick). Pronounced /ɡɪˈtɑː/. It ranks #3,106 in English word frequency. Often confused with Gupta and gutter.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | guitar |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɪˈtɑː/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,106 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for guitar is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɪˈtɑː/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,106 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for guitar, with forms such as "gguitar", "giutar", and "guiatr". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "Gupta", "gutter", "Gustav", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Ancient Greek κῐθᾰ́ρᾱ (kĭthắrā)bor. Aramaic קיתראbor. Arabic قِيثَارَة (qīṯāra)bor. Old Spanish guitarra Spanish guitarrabor. English guitar From Spanish guitarra, from Arabic قِيثَارَة (qīṯāra), from Ancient Greek κῐθᾰ́ρᾱ (kĭthắrā). Doublet … 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 guitar, spelled G-U-I-T-A-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A stringed musical instrument, of European origin, usually with a fretted fingerboard and six strings, played with the fingers or a plectrum (guitar pick).
- 2Any type of musical instrument of the lute family, characterized by a flat back, along with a neck whose upper surface is in the same plane as the soundboard, with strings along the neck and parallel to the soundboard.
Etymology
Etymology tree Ancient Greek κῐθᾰ́ρᾱ (kĭthắrā)bor. Aramaic קיתראbor. Arabic قِيثَارَة (qīṯāra)bor. Old Spanish guitarra Spanish guitarrabor. English guitar From Spanish guitarra, from Arabic قِيثَارَة (qīṯāra), from Ancient Greek κῐθᾰ́ρᾱ (kĭthắrā). Doublet of cithara, cither, and zither.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: gguitar,giutar,guiatr,guitarr,guitra,guittar,gutiar,ugitar
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for guitar
Misspelling Variants of "guitar"
Frequency rank: #3,106 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: