metal
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "metal", 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 "metal" 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 "metal" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
metal is aEnglishnoun. It means: Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from. Pronounced /ˈmɛ.təl/. It ranks #1,607 in English word frequency. Often confused with MTA and mets.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | metal |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɛ.təl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,607 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for metal is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɛ.təl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,607 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for metal, with forms such as "emtal", "meatl", and "metall". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "MTA", "mets", "meth", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English metal, a borrowing from Old French metal, from Latin metallum (“metal, mine, quarry, mineral”), itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek μέταλλον (métallon, “mine, quarry, metal”). 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 metal, spelled M-E-T-A-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from.
- 2Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from.
- 3Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from.
- 4Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from.
- 5Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from.
- 6Chemical elements or alloys, their ores, and the mines where their ores come from.
- 7A light tincture used in a coat of arms, specifically argent (white or silver) and or (gold).
- 8Molten glass that is to be blown or moulded to form objects.
- 9A category of rock music encompassing a number of genres (including thrash metal, death metal, heavy metal, etc.) characterized by strong drumbeats and distorted guitars.
- 10The substance that constitutes something or someone; matter; hence, character or temper.
- 11The effective power or calibre of guns carried by a vessel of war.
- 12The rails of a railway.
- 13The actual airline operating a flight, rather than any of the codeshare operators.
Etymology
From Middle English metal, a borrowing from Old French metal, from Latin metallum (“metal, mine, quarry, mineral”), itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek μέταλλον (métallon, “mine, quarry, metal”).
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: emtal,meatl,metall,metla,mettal,mmetal,mteal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for metal
Misspelling Variants of "metal"
Frequency rank: #1,607 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: