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hierophany

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

10 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "hierophany", 10-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 "hierophany" 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 "hierophany" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

hierophany is aEnglishnoun. It means: A physical manifestation of the holy or sacred, serving as a spiritual eidolon for emulation or worship. Pronounced /ˌhaɪ.əˈɹɒ.fə.ni/.

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Key facts for hierophany
PropertyValue
Headwordhierophany
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˌhaɪ.əˈɹɒ.fə.ni/
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

hierophany is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for hierophany is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌhaɪ.əˈɹɒ.fə.ni/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A physical manifestation of the holy or sacred, serving as a spiritual eidolon for emulation or worship.".

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for hierophany in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French hiérophanie, as used by Romanian religious historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) in his book The Sacred and the Profane (1959; translated into English from an unpublished French original), from Ancient Greek ἱερός (hierós,… 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 hierophany, spelled H-I-E-R-O-P-H-A-N-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A physical manifestation of the holy or sacred, serving as a spiritual eidolon for emulation or worship.

Etymology

Borrowed from French hiérophanie, as used by Romanian religious historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) in his book The Sacred and the Profane (1959; translated into English from an unpublished French original), from Ancient Greek ἱερός (hierós, “sacred, holy sign”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “show, appear”).

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "hierophany"?
"hierophany" is spelled H-I-E-R-O-P-H-A-N-Y. The IPA pronunciation is /ˌhaɪ.əˈɹɒ.fə.ni/.
What does "hierophany" mean?
As a noun, "hierophany" means: A physical manifestation of the holy or sacred, serving as a spiritual eidolon for emulation or worship.
How do you pronounce "hierophany"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "hierophany" is /ˌhaɪ.əˈɹɒ.fə.ni/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "hierophany"?
Borrowed from French hiérophanie, as used by Romanian religious historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) in his book The Sacred and the Profane (1959; translated into English from an unpublished French original), from Ancient Greek ἱερό... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.