monophthong
/ˈmɒnəfˌθɒŋ(ɡ)/
"monophthong" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“monophthong” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A vowel (in the sense of a sound rather than a letter of the alphabet) that has the same sound throughout its pronunciation, such as the short vowels in "pap", "pep", "pip", "pop" and "pup", as opp...
Corpus desk
Index EN-monophthong · monophthong · English
monophthong · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "M" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | monophthong |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɒnəfˌθɒŋ(ɡ)/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “monophthong” in English
Rare enough to double-check
monophthong is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈmɒnəfˌθɒŋ(ɡ)/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A vowel (in the sense of a sound rather than a letter of the alphabet) that has the same sound throughout its pronunciation, such as the short vowels in "pap", "pep", "pip", "pop" and "pup", as opp...".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for monophthong, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ancient Greek μονόφθογγος (monóphthongos), from μόνος (mónos, “single”) + φθόγγος (phthóngos, “sound”). The correct English form is monophthong, spelled M-O-N-O-P-H-T-H-O-N-G.
Definition
- 1A vowel (in the sense of a sound rather than a letter of the alphabet) that has the same sound throughout its pronunciation, such as the short vowels in "pap", "pep", "pip", "pop" and "pup", as opposed to a diphthong (eg, /aɪ/, the vowel in "pipe") or a triphthong (eg, /aɪə/, the sound in the non-rhotic pronunciation of "pyre").
Etymology
From Ancient Greek μονόφθογγος (monóphthongos), from μόνος (mónos, “single”) + φθόγγος (phthóngos, “sound”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.