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jacob-s-ladder

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

14 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "jacob-s-ladder", 14-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 "jacob-s-ladder" 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 "jacob-s-ladder" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

Jacob's ladder is aEnglishnoun. It means: A ladder leading to heaven.

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Key facts for Jacob's ladder
PropertyValue
HeadwordJacob's ladder
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Jacob's ladder is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for Jacob's ladder is 14 letters long, classified as anoun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for Jacob's ladder in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.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: After the Biblical Jacob's Ladder. 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 Jacob's ladder, spelled J-A-C-O-B-'-S- -L-A-D-D-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A ladder leading to heaven.
  2. 2
    A flowering plant of the genus Polemonium.
  3. 3
    A rope ladder from the ratline to the upper mast.
  4. 4
    A toy consisting of blocks of wood, held together by strings or ribbons, that appear to cascade downward as they flip over.
  5. 5
    A pocketknife consisting of two handle segments joined by a pivot, with a blade connected by a second pivot to the end of one handle segment.
  6. 6
    A noncompact surface resembling a ladder made of handlebodies.
  7. 7
    A high-voltage electrical device, often used as a visual effect in old movies, which has a pair of vertical electrodes that form an arc between them starting at the bottom, rising to the top, then repeating.
  8. 8
    A serving of short ribs.
  9. 9
    A ladder or run in a pair of tights.

Etymology

After the Biblical Jacob's Ladder.

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Jacob's ladder"?
"Jacob's ladder" is spelled J-A-C-O-B-'-S- -L-A-D-D-E-R.
What does "Jacob's ladder" mean?
As a noun, "Jacob's ladder" means: A ladder leading to heaven.
What is the origin of the word "Jacob's ladder"?
After the Biblical Jacob's Ladder. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter J in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.