leather
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "leather", 7-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 "leather" 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 "leather" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
leather is aEnglishnoun. It means: A tough material produced from the skin of animals, by tanning or similar process, used e.g. for clothing; often denotes leather from cattle when no qualifier specifies otherwise. Pronounced /ˈlɛðə/. It ranks #3,957 in English word frequency. Often confused with letter and Luther.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | leather |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈlɛðə/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #3,957 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for leather is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈlɛðə/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,957 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for leather, with forms such as "elather", "laether", and "leahter". 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 14 confusable-pair relationships, "letter", "Luther", "Lester", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English lether, from Old English leþer (“leather”), from Proto-West Germanic *leþr, from Proto-Germanic *leþrą (“leather”), possibly borrowed from Proto-Celtic *ɸlitrom, *letros, from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥tro-. Cognate with West Frisian leare… 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 leather, spelled L-E-A-T-H-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A tough material produced from the skin of animals, by tanning or similar process, used e.g. for clothing; often denotes leather from cattle when no qualifier specifies otherwise.
- 2A piece of the above used for polishing.
- 3A cricket ball or football.
- 4clothing made from the skin of animals, often worn by motorcycle riders.
- 5A good defensive play
- 6A punch.
- 7The skin.
- 8Clipping of fruit leather.
Etymology
From Middle English lether, from Old English leþer (“leather”), from Proto-West Germanic *leþr, from Proto-Germanic *leþrą (“leather”), possibly borrowed from Proto-Celtic *ɸlitrom, *letros, from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥tro-. Cognate with West Frisian leare (“leather”), Low German Leder (“leather”), Dutch leder, leer (“leather”), German Leder (“leather”), Danish læder (“leather”), Swedish läder (“leather”), Icelandic leður (“leather”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elather,laether,leahter,leatehr,leatherr,leathher,leathre,leatther,letaher,lleather
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for leather
Misspelling Variants of "leather"
Frequency rank: #3,957 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "leather"?
What does "leather" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "leather"?
How do you pronounce "leather"?
What is the origin of the word "leather"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: