natural-selection
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
17 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "natural-selection", 17-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "natural-selection" 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 "natural-selection" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
natural selection is aEnglishnoun. It means: A process by which heritable traits conferring survival and reproductive advantage to individuals, or related individuals, tend to be passed on to succeeding generations and become more frequent in...
Compare similar words
See how natural selection compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | natural selection |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for natural selection is 17 letters long, classified as anoun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for natural selection in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.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: Coined by British biologist Charles Darwin in 1859 in his work On the Origin of Species. 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 natural selection, spelled N-A-T-U-R-A-L- -S-E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A process by which heritable traits conferring survival and reproductive advantage to individuals, or related individuals, tend to be passed on to succeeding generations and become more frequent in a population, whereas other less favourable traits tend to become eliminated; the differential survival and reproduction of phenotypes.
- 2A process by which poor individual choices or attributes naturally, or rightfully, lead to poor outcomes, especially death.
Etymology
Coined by British biologist Charles Darwin in 1859 in his work On the Origin of Species.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "natural selection"?
What does "natural selection" mean?
What is the origin of the word "natural selection"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: