lobby
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "lobby", 5-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 "lobby" 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 "lobby" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
lobby is aEnglishnoun. It means: An entryway or reception area; vestibule; passageway; corridor. Pronounced /ˈlɒb.i/. It ranks #6,806 in English word frequency. Often confused with loy and lobe.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lobby |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈlɒb.i/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,806 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 16 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lobby is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈlɒb.i/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,806 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 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 lobby, with forms such as "lboby", "llobby", and "lobbyy". 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 16 confusable-pair relationships, "loy", "lobe", "Loeb", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Medieval Latin lobia, lobium, laubia (“a portico, covered way, gallery”), borrowed from Frankish *laubijā (“arbour, shelter”), related to Old English lēaf (“foliage”). More at leaf. Doublet of leaf, lodge, and loggia. Political sense derives from the e… 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 lobby, spelled L-O-B-B-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An entryway or reception area; vestibule; passageway; corridor.
- 2That part of a hall of legislation not appropriated to the official use of the assembly.
- 3A class or group of interested people who try to influence public officials; collectively, lobbyists.
- 4A virtual area where meeting attendees can await admittance from an authorized person.
- 5A virtual area where players can chat and find opponents for a game.
- 6An apartment or passageway in the fore part of an old-fashioned cabin under the quarter-deck.
- 7A confined place for cattle, formed by hedges, trees, or other fencing, near the farmyard.
- 8A margin along either side of the playing field in the sport of kabaddi.
- 9A waiting area in front of a bank of elevators.
Etymology
From Medieval Latin lobia, lobium, laubia (“a portico, covered way, gallery”), borrowed from Frankish *laubijā (“arbour, shelter”), related to Old English lēaf (“foliage”). More at leaf. Doublet of leaf, lodge, and loggia. Political sense derives from the entrance hall of legislatures, where people traditionally tried to influence legislators because it was the most convenient place to meet them.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lboby,llobby,lobbyy,loby,lobyb,olbby
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for lobby
Misspelling Variants of "lobby"
Frequency rank: #6,806 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: