mission
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "mission", 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 "mission" 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 "mission" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
mission is aEnglishnoun. It means: A set of tasks that fulfills a purpose or duty; an assignment set by an employer, or by oneself. Pronounced /ˈmɪʃ.ən/. It ranks #1,430 in English word frequency. Often confused with missions and minion.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mission |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɪʃ.ən/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,430 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mission is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɪʃ.ən/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,430 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for mission, with forms such as "imssion", "mision", and "misison". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "missions", "minion", "million", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Latin missiō, missiōnem (“a sending, sending away, dispatching, discharging, release, remission, cessation”). 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 mission, spelled M-I-S-S-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A set of tasks that fulfills a purpose or duty; an assignment set by an employer, or by oneself.
- 2A important goal or purpose; an objective.
- 3A missionary expedition.
- 4Third World charities, particularly those which preach as well as provide aid.
- 5An infrequent gathering of religious believers in a parish, usually part of a larger regional event with a central theme.
- 6A number of people appointed to perform any service; a delegation; an embassy.
- 7Dismissal; discharge from service
- 8A settlement or building serving as a base for missionary work.
- 9An settlement predominantly inhabited by Indigenous Australians living in housing commission.
- 10A drug run.
- 11An ordeal; an difficult, trying task.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin missiō, missiōnem (“a sending, sending away, dispatching, discharging, release, remission, cessation”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: imssion,mision,misison,missino,missionn,missoin,mistion,mmission,msision
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for mission
Misspelling Variants of "mission"
Frequency rank: #1,430 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: