non-refoulement
/ˌnɒnɹəˈfuːlmɒ̃/
Detailed reference entry for the English word "non-refoulement", 15-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 "non-refoulement" 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 "non-refoulement" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“non-refoulement” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — The principle that a person (particularly a refugee) should not be returned to an area (chiefly their country of origin) where they would face mistreatment.
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See how non-refoulement compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | non-refoulement |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌnɒnɹəˈfuːlmɒ̃/ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “non-refoulement” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for non-refoulement is 15 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌnɒnɹəˈfuːlmɒ̃/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The principle that a person (particularly a refugee) should not be returned to an area (chiefly their country of origin) where they would face mistreatment.".
No misspelling variants are generated for non-refoulement 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: From non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + refoulement. Refoulement is borrowed from French refoulement (“act of pushing something back (as gunpowder into a gun barrel, or water by a dam); act of water overflowing; forced relocation of a group of people; forced rep… 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 non-refoulement, spelled N-O-N---R-E-F-O-U-L-E-M-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The principle that a person (particularly a refugee) should not be returned to an area (chiefly their country of origin) where they would face mistreatment.
Etymology
From non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + refoulement. Refoulement is borrowed from French refoulement (“act of pushing something back (as gunpowder into a gun barrel, or water by a dam); act of water overflowing; forced relocation of a group of people; forced repatriation of asylum-seekers or refugees”), from refouler (“to cause to flow or turn back; to repress, suppress; to repulse; to trample on again”) (from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + fouler (“to impress, stamp; to trample, walk on; to mistreat, oppress”) (ultimately from Medieval Latin fullare (“to make cloth denser and firmer by soaking, beating and pressing, to full”), from Latin fullō (“one who fulls cloth, fuller”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“to blow; to inflate, swell”)) + -ment (suffix forming nouns from verbs, usually denoting resulting actions or states).
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.
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PlainSpell, “non-refoulement, English word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/en/word/non-refoulement
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Using “non-refoulement”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-O-N---R-E-F-O-U-L-E-M-E-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌnɒnɹəˈfuːlmɒ̃/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: