leprosy
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "leprosy", 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 "leprosy" 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 "leprosy" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
leprosy is aEnglishnoun. It means: An infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, gradually producing nerve damage and patches of skin necrosis and historically handled by permanently quarantining its sufferers. Pronounced /ˈlɛpɹəsi/. Often confused with Leroy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | leprosy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈlɛpɹəsi/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #28,975 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for leprosy is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈlɛpɹəsi/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,975 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for leprosy, with forms such as "elprosy", "leporsy", and "lepprosy". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "Leroy", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Norman leprosie, from Middle French leprosie (“leprosy & similar skin diseases”), probably from leprous (“leprous”) + -ie (“-y”) but possibly from Medieval Latin leprōsia (leprōsus + -ia) although this only historically attested in reference to leprosa… 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 leprosy, spelled L-E-P-R-O-S-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, gradually producing nerve damage and patches of skin necrosis and historically handled by permanently quarantining its sufferers.
- 2Similar contagious skin diseases causing light patches of scaly skin, particularly psoriasis, syphilis, vitiligo, scabies, and (biblical) the various diseases considered "tzaraath" in the Old Testament.
- 3Anything considered similarly permanent, harmful, and communicable, particularly when such a thing should be handled by avoidance or isolation of its victims.
- 4A contagious disease causing similar effects in animals, particularly
- 5A contagious disease causing similar effects in animals, particularly
- 6Synonym of leprosarium: a place for the housing of lepers in isolation from the rest of society.
Etymology
From Norman leprosie, from Middle French leprosie (“leprosy & similar skin diseases”), probably from leprous (“leprous”) + -ie (“-y”) but possibly from Medieval Latin leprōsia (leprōsus + -ia) although this only historically attested in reference to leprosariums. The shift of sense from psoriasis to Hansen's disease occurred in large part from the use of λέπρα (lépra) to translate Hebrew צרעת (“tzaraath”) in the Septuagint and its subsequent use in the New Testament and Late Latin.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elprosy,leporsy,lepprosy,leprossy,leprosyy,leproys,leprrosy,leprsoy,lerposy,lleprosy,lperosy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for leprosy
Misspelling Variants of "leprosy"
Frequency rank: #28,975 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: