icing
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "icing", 5-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 "icing" 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 "icing" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
icing is aEnglishnoun. It means: A sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar, often enriched with ingredients like butter, egg whites, or flavorings, typically used for baked goods. Pronounced /ˈaɪsɪŋ/. Often confused with icon and Irina.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | icing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈaɪsɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #15,191 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for icing is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈaɪsɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,191 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 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 icing, with forms such as "ciing", "iccing", and "icign". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "icon", "Irina", "inning", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Gerund of the verb to ice. 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 icing, spelled I-C-I-N-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar, often enriched with ingredients like butter, egg whites, or flavorings, typically used for baked goods.
- 2A minor violation of ice hockey rules, occurring when a player shoots the puck from his/her side of the red line so that it crosses the goal line on the opponent's side. A team playing short-handed is not penalized for this.
- 3The process of forming a layer of ice on a surface.
- 4Conditions conducive to the formation of ice on aircraft surfaces.
Etymology
Gerund of the verb to ice.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ciing,iccing,icign,icingg,icinng,icnig,iicng
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for icing
Misspelling Variants of "icing"
Frequency rank: #15,191 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: