impose
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 "impose", 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 "impose" 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 "impose" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
impose is aEnglishverb. It means: To physically lay or place (something) on another thing; to deposit, to put, to set. Pronounced /ɪmˈpəʊz/. It ranks #8,047 in English word frequency. Often confused with impure and improve.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | impose |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɪmˈpəʊz/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #8,047 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for impose is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪmˈpəʊz/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,047 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for impose, with forms such as "immpose", "imopse", and "impoes". 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, "impure", "improve", "imposed", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is derived from Late Middle English imposen (“to place, set; to impose (a duty, etc.)”), borrowed from Middle French imposer, and Old French emposer, enposer (“to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”) (modern French imposer), from im-, em- (variants of en- … 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 impose, spelled I-M-P-O-S-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To physically lay or place (something) on another thing; to deposit, to put, to set.
- 2To physically lay or place (something) on another thing; to deposit, to put, to set.
- 3To physically lay or place (something) on another thing; to deposit, to put, to set.
- 4To apply, enforce, or establish (something, often regarded as burdensome as a restriction or tax: see verb sense 1.2.1) with authority.
- 5Chiefly followed by on or upon.
- 6Chiefly followed by on or upon.
- 7Chiefly followed by on or upon.
- 8Chiefly followed by on or upon.
Etymology
The verb is derived from Late Middle English imposen (“to place, set; to impose (a duty, etc.)”), borrowed from Middle French imposer, and Old French emposer, enposer (“to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”) (modern French imposer), from im-, em- (variants of en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’)) + poser (“to place, put”), modelled after: * Latin impōnere (“to place or set (something) on; (figurative) to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”), from im- (variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘on, upon’)) + pōnō (“to place, put; etc.”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂pó, *h₂epó (“away; off”) + *tḱey- (“to cultivate; to live; to settle”)); and * Latin impositus (“established; put upon, imposed”), the perfect passive participle of impōnō: see above. The noun is derived from the verb.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: immpose,imopse,impoes,imposse,imppose,impsoe,ipmose,mipose
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for impose
Misspelling Variants of "impose"
Frequency rank: #8,047 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: