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octavo

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

6 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "octavo", 6-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 "octavo" 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 "octavo" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

octavo is aEnglishnoun. It means: A sheet of paper 7 to 10 inches (= 17.78 to 25.4 cm) high and 4.5 to 6 inches (= 11.43 to 15.24 cm) wide, the size varying with the large original sheet used to create it. It is made by folding the...

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Key facts for octavo
PropertyValue
Headwordoctavo
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters6
Frequency rank#66,154
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of octavo in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for octavo is 6 letters long, classified as anoun. Corpus data places it at rank #66,154 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for octavo in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.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 Latin octavo. Doublet of octave, oitava, and ochava. 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 octavo, spelled O-C-T-A-V-O, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A sheet of paper 7 to 10 inches (= 17.78 to 25.4 cm) high and 4.5 to 6 inches (= 11.43 to 15.24 cm) wide, the size varying with the large original sheet used to create it. It is made by folding the original sheet three times to produce eight leaves.
  2. 2
    A book of octavo pages.

Etymology

From Latin octavo. Doublet of octave, oitava, and ochava.

Synonyms

Frequency rank: #66,154 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "octavo"?
"octavo" is spelled O-C-T-A-V-O.
What does "octavo" mean?
As a noun, "octavo" means: A sheet of paper 7 to 10 inches (= 17.78 to 25.4 cm) high and 4.5 to 6 inches (= 11.43 to 15.24 cm) wide, the size varying with the large original sheet used to create it. It is made by folding the...
What is the origin of the word "octavo"?
From Latin octavo. Doublet of octave, oitava, and ochava. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter O in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.