lafayette
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "lafayette", 9-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "lafayette" 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 "lafayette" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Lafayette is aEnglishname. It means: Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette (1757–1834), a French aristocrat who is considered a national hero in both France and the United States for his participation in the French and American rev... Pronounced /ˌlæfiːˈɛt/.
Compare similar words
See how Lafayette compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Lafayette |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /ˌlæfiːˈɛt/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #14,579 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Lafayette is 9 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌlæfiːˈɛt/. Corpus data places it at rank #14,579 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 17 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for Lafayette, with forms such as "alfayette", "laafyette", and "lafaeytte". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.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: French surname from Occitan, "the little beech tree". 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 Lafayette, spelled L-A-F-A-Y-E-T-T-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette (1757–1834), a French aristocrat who is considered a national hero in both France and the United States for his participation in the French and American revolutions.
- 2A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 3A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 4A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 5A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 6A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 7A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 8A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 9A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 10A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 11A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 12A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 13A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 14A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 15A number of places in the United States named for the Marquis de La Fayette:
- 16A surname from French.
- 17A male given name transferred from the surname, originally in honor of the Marquis.
Etymology
French surname from Occitan, "the little beech tree".
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alfayette,laafyette,lafaeytte,lafayete,lafayetet,lafaytete,lafayyette,laffayette,lafyaette,lfaayette,llafayette
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Lafayette
Misspelling Variants of "Lafayette"
Frequency rank: #14,579 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "Lafayette"?
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: