iceberg
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "iceberg", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "iceberg" 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 "iceberg" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
iceberg is aEnglishnoun. It means: The seaward end of a glacier. Pronounced /ˈaɪsbɜːɡ/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | iceberg |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈaɪsbɜːɡ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #18,341 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for iceberg is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈaɪsbɜːɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #18,341 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for iceberg, with forms such as "cieberg", "icbeerg", and "icceberg". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.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: Partial calque of Dutch ijsberg (compound of ijs (“ice”) + berg (“mountain”)), from Middle Dutch ijsberch. First used to describe a glacier as seen at a distance from a ship then used as a term to describe the floating chunks of ice broken off from such gla… 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 iceberg, spelled I-C-E-B-E-R-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The seaward end of a glacier.
- 2A huge mass of ocean-floating ice which has broken off a glacier or ice shelf
- 3An aloof person.
- 4An impending disastrous event whose adverse effects are only beginning to show.
- 5A topic that is more convoluted and fractal than it may seem.
- 6A topic that is more convoluted and fractal than it may seem.
Etymology
Partial calque of Dutch ijsberg (compound of ijs (“ice”) + berg (“mountain”)), from Middle Dutch ijsberch. First used to describe a glacier as seen at a distance from a ship then used as a term to describe the floating chunks of ice broken off from such glaciers. Cognate to German Eisberg, Danish isbjerg, Norwegian isberg and Swedish isberg. Figurative senses in reference to the fact that only one-tenth of an iceberg is usually visible above water.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cieberg,icbeerg,icceberg,icebberg,icebegr,icebergg,iceberrg,icebreg,iceebrg,iecberg
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for iceberg
Misspelling Variants of "iceberg"
Frequency rank: #18,341 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: