iron
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "iron", 4-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 "iron" 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 "iron" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
iron is aEnglishnoun. It means: A common, inexpensive metal, silvery grey when untarnished, that rusts, is attracted by magnets, and is used in making steel: a chemical element having atomic number 26 and symbol Fe. Pronounced /æːn/. It ranks #1,866 in English word frequency. Often confused with IRS and iso.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | iron |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /æːn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,866 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for iron is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /æːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,866 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for iron, with forms such as "iorn", "irno", and "ironn". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "IRS", "iso", "Ivo", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English iren, from Old English īsern, īsærn, īren, īsen, from Proto-West Germanic *īsarn, from Proto-Germanic *īsarną (“iron”), from Proto-Celtic *īsarnom (“iron”), possibly a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésh₂r̥ (“blood”). Cognates Cog… 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 iron, spelled I-R-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A common, inexpensive metal, silvery grey when untarnished, that rusts, is attracted by magnets, and is used in making steel: a chemical element having atomic number 26 and symbol Fe.
- 2Any material, not a steel, predominantly made of elemental iron.
- 3A tool or appliance made of metal, which is heated and then used to transfer heat to something else; most often a thick piece of metal fitted with a handle and having a flat, roughly triangular bottom, which is heated and used to press wrinkles from clothing, and now usually containing an electrical heating apparatus.
- 4Any of several other tools traditionally made of wrought iron, now usually of steel.
- 5Shackles.
- 6A firearm, either a long gun or a handgun.
- 7A dark shade of the color silver.
- 8A male homosexual.
- 9A golf club used for middle-distance shots.
- 10Used as a symbol of great strength or toughness, or to signify a very strong or tough material.
- 11Weight used as resistance for the purpose of strength training.
- 12A meteorite consisting primarily of metallic iron (mixed with a small amount of nickel), as opposed to one composed mainly of stony material.
- 13A safety curtain in a theatre.
- 14A dumb bomb, one without guidance systems.
Etymology
From Middle English iren, from Old English īsern, īsærn, īren, īsen, from Proto-West Germanic *īsarn, from Proto-Germanic *īsarną (“iron”), from Proto-Celtic *īsarnom (“iron”), possibly a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésh₂r̥ (“blood”). Cognates Cognate with Scots airn, ern (“iron”), Yola eeren (“iron”), Saterland Frisian Iersen (“iron”), West Frisian izer (“iron”), Bavarian Eisn (“iron”), Cimbrian aizarn (“iron”), Dutch ijzer (“iron”), German, Luxembourgish Eisen (“iron”), German Low German Isen (“iron”), Limburgish iezer (“iron”), Mòcheno aisn (“iron”), Vilamovian ȧjza (“iron”), West Flemish yzer (“iron”), Yiddish אײַזן (ayzn, “iron”), Danish jern, jærn (“iron”), Faroese jarn (“iron”), Icelandic járn (“iron”), Jamtish járn, jáðn (“iron”), Norwegian Bokmål jern (“iron”), Norwegian Nynorsk jarn, jern, jønn (“iron”), Swedish jern, jaͤrn, järn (“iron”), Gothic 𐌴𐌹𐍃𐌰𐍂𐌽 (eisarn, “iron”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: iorn,irno,ironn,irron,rion
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for iron
Misspelling Variants of "iron"
Frequency rank: #1,866 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: