height
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 "height", 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 "height" 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 "height" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
height is aEnglishnoun. It means: The distance from the base to the top of something. Pronounced /haɪt/. It ranks #2,836 in English word frequency. Often confused with high and heist.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | height |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /haɪt/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,836 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for height is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /haɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,836 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for height, with forms such as "ehight", "hegiht", and "heigght". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "high", "heist", "heights", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kewk- Proto-Indo-European *kówk-o-s Proto-Germanic *hauhaz Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂der. Proto-Germanic *-iþō Proto-Germanic *hauhiþō Proto-West Germanic *hauhiþu Old English hīehþu Middle English heighte English height … 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 height, spelled H-E-I-G-H-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The distance from the base to the top of something.
- 2The distance from the base to the top of something.
- 3The distance from the base to the top of something.
- 4The distance from the base to the top of something.
- 5The distance of something above the ground or some other chosen level.
- 6A high point.
- 7A high point.
- 8A high point.
- 9A high point.
- 10A quality of vowels, indicating the vertical position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth; in practice, the first formant, associated with the height of the tongue.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kewk- Proto-Indo-European *kówk-o-s Proto-Germanic *hauhaz Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂der. Proto-Germanic *-iþō Proto-Germanic *hauhiþō Proto-West Germanic *hauhiþu Old English hīehþu Middle English heighte English height From Middle English heighte, heiȝþe, from Old English hēahþu, hēhþo, hīehþu (“height”), Proto-West Germanic *hauhiþu, from Proto-Germanic *hauhiþō (compare *hauhaz). Equivalent to high + -t (abstract nominal suffix). The regular pronunciation is now obsolete /heɪt/ (as with other words in -eight); the modern form developed early on, at first as a variant, by analogy with the underlying adjective. Cognates See also Saterland Frisian Höchte, Hööchte (“height”), West Frisian hichte (“height”), Dutch hoogte (“height”), Middle High German hœhede, hœhte (“height”), Old Norse hæð (“height”) (compare Swedish höjd, Norwegian høyde), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌷𐌹𐌸𐌰 (hauhiþa, “height”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ehight,hegiht,heigght,heighht,heightt,heigth,heihgt,hheight,hieght
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for height
Misspelling Variants of "height"
Frequency rank: #2,836 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: