island
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "island", 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 "island" 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 "island" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
island is aEnglishnoun. It means: A contiguous area of land, smaller than a continent, totally surrounded by water. Pronounced /ˈaɪlənd/. It ranks #1,052 in English word frequency. Often confused with Islands and islander.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | island |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈaɪlənd/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,052 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for island is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈaɪlənd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,052 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for island, with forms such as "ilsand", "isalnd", and "isladn". 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 9 confusable-pair relationships, "Islands", "islander", "Isla", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ékʷeh₂ Proto-Germanic *awjō Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *landą Proto-Germanic *awjōlandą Proto-West Germanic *auwjuland Old English īeġland Middle English ilond English iland Engl… 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 island, spelled I-S-L-A-N-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A contiguous area of land, smaller than a continent, totally surrounded by water.
- 2A contiguous area of land, smaller than a continent, partially surrounded by water; a peninsula; a half-island.
- 3An entity surrounded by other entities that are very different from itself.
- 4A superstructure on an aircraft carrier's deck.
- 5A traffic island.
- 6A roundabout; a traffic circle.
- 7A bench, counter, etc., that is not connected to a wall or other furniture and which can be used from any side.
- 8A bench, counter, etc., that is not connected to a wall or other furniture and which can be used from any side.
- 9An unincorporated area wholly surrounded by one or more incorporated areas.
- 10A phrase from which a wh-word cannot be extracted without yielding invalid grammar.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ékʷeh₂ Proto-Germanic *awjō Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *landą Proto-Germanic *awjōlandą Proto-West Germanic *auwjuland Old English īeġland Middle English ilond English iland English island From earlier iland, from Middle English iland, yland, ylond, from Old English īeġland, from Proto-West Germanic *auwjuland, from Proto-Germanic *awjōlandą (from Proto-Germanic *awjō (“island, waterland, meadow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ekʷeh₂) + *landą (“land”), equivalent to ey + land. Doublet of Öland. Cognate with Scots island, iland, yland (“island”), West Frisian eilân (“island”), Saterland Frisian Ailound (“island”), Dutch eiland (“island”), Low German Eiland (“island”), German Eiland (“island”), Swedish ö (“island”), Öland (“Sweden's second largest island”), Danish ø (“island”), Norwegian øy (“island”), øyland (“large island”), Icelandic eyland (“island”). The insertion of ⟨s⟩—a 16th century spelling modification—is due to a change in spelling to the unrelated term isle, which previously lacked s (cf. Middle English ile, yle). The re-addition was mistakenly carried over to include iland as well. Related also to German Aue (“water-meadow”), Latin aqua (“water”). More at ea.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ilsand,isalnd,isladn,islandd,islannd,islland,islnad,issland,siland
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for island
Misspelling Variants of "island"
Frequency rank: #1,052 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: