gun
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "gun", 3-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 "gun" 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 "gun" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
gun is aEnglishnoun. It means: A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot. Pronounced /ˈɡʌn/. It ranks #1,168 in English word frequency. Often confused with guy and gym.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gun |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡʌn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,168 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gun is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡʌn/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,168 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 16 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for gun in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "guy", "gym", "gut", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gunne, gonne, possibly from Gunnhild, a female given name formerly used as a nickname for engines of war (compare Nordic Gunn, a female name meaning “battle”). The name is composed of the Norse elements gunnr and hildr, both meaning "bat… 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 gun, spelled G-U-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.
- 2A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.
- 3A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.
- 4A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.
- 5A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.
- 6A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.
- 7A device operated by a trigger and acting in a manner similar to a firearm.
- 8A device operated by a trigger and acting in a manner similar to a firearm.
- 9A device operated by a trigger and acting in a manner similar to a firearm.
- 10A long surfboard designed for surfing big waves (not the same as a longboard, a gun has a pointed nose and is generally a little narrower).
- 11A pattern that "fires" out other patterns.
- 12A person who carries or uses a gun (rifle, shotgun or handgun), particularly with reference to how quickly the person can draw and fire the gun.
- 13An electron gun.
- 14The biceps.
- 15Violent blasts of wind.
- 16Someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, skilful, or cool.
Etymology
From Middle English gunne, gonne, possibly from Gunnhild, a female given name formerly used as a nickname for engines of war (compare Nordic Gunn, a female name meaning “battle”). The name is composed of the Norse elements gunnr and hildr, both meaning "battle".
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #1,168 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: