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meatball

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

8 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "meatball", 8-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 "meatball" 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 "meatball" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

meatball is aEnglishnoun. It means: A ball of minced or ground meat, seasoned and cooked.

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Key facts for meatball
PropertyValue
Headwordmeatball
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Frequency rank#34,190
Misspellings tracked10
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of meatball in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for meatball is 8 letters long, classified as anoun. Corpus data places it at rank #34,190 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 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for meatball, with forms such as "ematball", "maetball", and "meabtall". 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 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: From meat + ball. 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 meatball, spelled M-E-A-T-B-A-L-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A ball of minced or ground meat, seasoned and cooked.
  2. 2
    A stupid person; a meathead.
  3. 3
    An easy pitch to hit, especially thrown right down the middle of the plate.
  4. 4
    An optical landing system.
  5. 5
    A menu icon of three horizontal dots.
  6. 6
    Ellipsis of meatball flag.

Etymology

From meat + ball.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ematball,maetball,meabtall,meatabll,meatbal,meatbball,meatblal,meattball,metaball,mmeatball

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for meatball

Misspelling Variants of "meatball"

ematball8maetball8meabtall8meatabll8meatbal7meatbball9meatblal8meattball9
Misspelling Variants of "meatball"

Frequency rank: #34,190 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "meatball"?
"meatball" is spelled M-E-A-T-B-A-L-L.
What does "meatball" mean?
As a noun, "meatball" means: A ball of minced or ground meat, seasoned and cooked.
What are common misspellings of "meatball"?
Common misspellings include "ematball", "maetball", "meabtall", "meatabll", "meatbal". The correct spelling is "meatball".
What is the origin of the word "meatball"?
From meat + ball. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.