kent
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "kent", 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 "kent" 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 "kent" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Kent is aEnglishname. It means: A maritime county in southeast England bordered by East Sussex, Surrey, Greater London, the North Sea and the English Channel. Pronounced /kɛnt/. It ranks #5,430 in English word frequency. Often confused with KT and key.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Kent |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /kɛnt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,430 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Kent is 4 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɛnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,430 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 25 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for Kent, with forms such as "eknt", "kennt", and "kentt". 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, "KT", "key", "kit", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English Kent, from Old English Cent, from Latin Cantium, from Brythonic *Cantio (compare Old Irish céite (“gathering, folkmoot, hillock”)), from Proto-Celtic *kantos (“corner, rim”). 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 Kent, spelled K-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A maritime county in southeast England bordered by East Sussex, Surrey, Greater London, the North Sea and the English Channel.
- 2A river in Cumbria, England, which flows into Morecambe Bay at Arnside.
- 3A hamlet in Ellingham, Harbridge and Ibsley parish, New Forest district, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU1310).
- 4A district municipality of British Columbia, Canada.
- 5A coastal fishing village in the Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone.
- 6A number of places in the United States:
- 7A number of places in the United States:
- 8A number of places in the United States:
- 9A number of places in the United States:
- 10A number of places in the United States:
- 11A number of places in the United States:
- 12A number of places in the United States:
- 13A number of places in the United States:
- 14A number of places in the United States:
- 15A number of places in the United States:
- 16A number of places in the United States:
- 17A number of places in the United States:
- 18A number of places in the United States:
- 19A number of places in the United States:
- 20A number of places in the United States:
- 21A number of places in the United States:
- 22A number of places in the United States:
- 23A surname from Old English derived from the place name.
- 24A male given name transferred from the surname, of mostly American usage.
- 25A royal dukedom.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English Kent, from Old English Cent, from Latin Cantium, from Brythonic *Cantio (compare Old Irish céite (“gathering, folkmoot, hillock”)), from Proto-Celtic *kantos (“corner, rim”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eknt,kennt,kentt,ketn,kkent,knet
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Kent
Misspelling Variants of "Kent"
Frequency rank: #5,430 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "Kent"?
What does "Kent" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "Kent"?
How do you pronounce "Kent"?
What is the origin of the word "Kent"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter K in our English index: