lunch
/lʌnt͡ʃ/
"lunch" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lunch” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,221 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,221
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A light meal usually eaten around midday, notably when not as main meal of the day.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lunch |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lʌnt͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,221 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lunch” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lunch is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lʌnt͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,221 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for lunch, with forms such as "llunch", "lnuch", and "lucnh". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "lung", "lush", "Lund", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Recorded since 1580 in the sense “piece, hunk”. The word luncheon with the same meaning is presumably an extension on the pattern of puncheon (“cask”) and truncheon (“cudgel”). But earliest found forms of luncheon include lunshin and lunching, which are equ… The correct English form is lunch, spelled L-U-N-C-H.
Definition
- 1A light meal usually eaten around midday, notably when not as main meal of the day.
- 2A break in play between the first and second sessions.
- 3Any small meal, especially one eaten at a social gathering.
- 4A thin piece or hunk (of bread, meat, etc.)
Etymology
Recorded since 1580 in the sense “piece, hunk”. The word luncheon with the same meaning is presumably an extension on the pattern of puncheon (“cask”) and truncheon (“cudgel”). But earliest found forms of luncheon include lunshin and lunching, which are equivalent to lunch + -ing, with the suffix -ing possibly later modified to imitate a French origin. In contrast, the more common sense “light meal” is first attested for luncheon in 1652 and for lunch in 1829, so in this sense the latter is probably a shortening of the former. Lunch is possibly a derivative of lump (as hunch is from hump. See hunch for more), or represents an alteration of nuncheon, from Middle English nonechenche (“light midday meal”) (see nuncheon) and altered by northern English dialect lunch (“hunk of bread or cheese”) (1590), which perhaps is from lump or from Spanish lonja (“a slice”, literally “loin”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: llunch,lnuch,lucnh,luncch,lunchh,lunhc,lunnch,ulnch
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of lunch - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “lunch”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-U-N-C-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /lʌnt͡ʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “lung” - see the side-by-side comparison. lunch vs lung
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.