harrow
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "harrow", 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 "harrow" 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 "harrow" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
harrow is aEnglishnoun. It means: A device consisting of a heavy framework having several disks or teeth in a row, which is dragged across ploughed land to smooth or break up the soil, to remove weeds or cover seeds; a harrow plow. Pronounced /ˈhæɹəʊ/. Often confused with harry and horror.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | harrow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhæɹəʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #26,107 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for harrow is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhæɹəʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,107 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 2 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 harrow, with forms such as "ahrrow", "harorw", and "harow". 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 8 confusable-pair relationships, "harry", "horror", "Harris", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English harwe, harow, from Old English *hearwa (perhaps ultimately cognate with harvest), or from Old Norse harfr/herfi; compare Danish harve (“harrow”), Dutch hark (“rake”). Akin to Latin carpere. According to the OED, the verb senses are partl… 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 harrow, spelled H-A-R-R-O-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A device consisting of a heavy framework having several disks or teeth in a row, which is dragged across ploughed land to smooth or break up the soil, to remove weeds or cover seeds; a harrow plow.
- 2An obstacle formed by turning an ordinary harrow upside down, the frame being buried.
Etymology
From Middle English harwe, harow, from Old English *hearwa (perhaps ultimately cognate with harvest), or from Old Norse harfr/herfi; compare Danish harve (“harrow”), Dutch hark (“rake”). Akin to Latin carpere. According to the OED, the verb senses are partly derived from the noun sense, partly from a by-form of the verb harry, itself from Old English hergian.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ahrrow,harorw,harow,harroww,harrwo,hharrow,hrarow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for harrow
Misspelling Variants of "harrow"
Frequency rank: #26,107 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: