nexus
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "nexus", 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 "nexus" 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 "nexus" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
nexus is aEnglishnoun. It means: A form or state of connection. Pronounced /ˈnɛksəs/. Often confused with nous and NES.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nexus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈnɛksəs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #12,111 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for nexus is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈnɛksəs/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,111 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 6 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 nexus, with forms such as "enxus", "neuxs", and "nexsu". 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 11 confusable-pair relationships, "nous", "NES", "NEX", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin nexus (“connection, nexus; act of binding, tying or fastening together; something which binds, binding, bond, fastening, joint; legal obligation”), from nectō (“to attach, bind, connect, fasten, tie; to interweave; to relate; to unite; to bind by… 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 nexus, spelled N-E-X-U-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A form or state of connection.
- 2A form or state of connection.
- 3A connected group; a network, a web.
- 4A centre or focus of something.
- 5In the work of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943): a group of words expressing two concepts in one unit (such as a clause or sentence).
- 6A person who had contracted a nexum or obligation of such a kind that, if they failed to pay, their creditor could compel them to work as a servant until the debt was paid; an indentured servant.
Etymology
From Latin nexus (“connection, nexus; act of binding, tying or fastening together; something which binds, binding, bond, fastening, joint; legal obligation”), from nectō (“to attach, bind, connect, fasten, tie; to interweave; to relate; to unite; to bind by obligation, make liable, oblige; to compose, contrive, devise, produce”) + -tus (suffix forming verbal nouns).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: enxus,neuxs,nexsu,nexuss,nexxus,nnexus,nxeus
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for nexus
Misspelling Variants of "nexus"
Frequency rank: #12,111 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: