neutral
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "neutral", 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 "neutral" 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 "neutral" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
neutral is anEnglishadj. It means: Not taking sides in a conflict such as war; nonaligned. Pronounced /ˈnjuː.tɹəl/. It ranks #4,782 in English word frequency. Often confused with neutron and neural.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | neutral |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈnjuː.tɹəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #4,782 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for neutral is 7 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈnjuː.tɹəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,782 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 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for neutral, with forms such as "enutral", "netural", and "neurtal". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "neutron", "neural", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French neutral (compare modern French neutre), from Latin neutrālis. By surface analysis, neuter + -al. 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 neutral, spelled N-E-U-T-R-A-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Not taking sides in a conflict such as war; nonaligned.
- 2Favoring neither the supporting nor opposing viewpoint of a topic of debate; unbiased.
- 3Neither positive nor negative.
- 4Not biased; viewing situations objectively in a way that is neither positive nor negative.
- 5Neither beneficial nor harmful.
- 6Having no sex; neuter.
- 7Having no obvious colour; gray.
- 8Neither positive nor negative; possessing no charge or equivalent positive and negative charge such that there is no imbalance.
- 9Having a pH of or near 7, neither acidic nor alkaline.
- 10Of an alcoholic drink, having been fermented and distilled but with no additives.
- 11Having an alignment that is situated between two notable possibilities, such as between good and evil, or between chaotic and lawful.
Etymology
From Middle French neutral (compare modern French neutre), from Latin neutrālis. By surface analysis, neuter + -al.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: enutral,netural,neurtal,neutarl,neutrall,neutrla,neutrral,neuttral,nneutral,nuetral
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for neutral
Misspelling Variants of "neutral"
Frequency rank: #4,782 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: