other
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "other", 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 "other" 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 "other" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
other is anEnglishadj. It means: See other (determiner) below. Pronounced /ˈʌðə/. It ranks #73 in English word frequency. Often confused with over and owner.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | other |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈʌðə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #73 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for other is 5 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʌðə/. Corpus data places it at rank #73 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 5 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 other, with forms such as "ohter", "otehr", and "otherr". 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, "over", "owner", "outer", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂en Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Indo-European *h₂énteros Proto-Germanic *anþeraz Proto-West Germanic *anþar Old English ōþer Middle English other English other From Middle English other, from Old English ōþer (“oth… 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 other, spelled O-T-H-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1See other (determiner) below.
- 2Second.
- 3Alien.
- 4Different.
- 5Left, as opposed to right.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂en Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Indo-European *h₂énteros Proto-Germanic *anþeraz Proto-West Germanic *anþar Old English ōþer Middle English other English other From Middle English other, from Old English ōþer (“other, second”), from Proto-West Germanic *ą̄þar, *anþar, from Proto-Germanic *anþeraz (“other, second”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂énteros (“other”). Cognate with Scots uther, ither (“other”), Old Frisian ōther, ("other"; > North Frisian ouder, öler, üđer, Saterland Frisian uur, West Frisian oar), Old Saxon ōthar, ("other"; > Low German anner), Old Dutch āthar, ("other"; > Afrikaans ander, Dutch ander), Old High German andar, ("other"; > Cimbrian andar, German ander, anderer, Luxembourgish aner, Mòcheno ònder, Yiddish אַנדער (ander)), Old Norse annarr, ("other"; > Danish anden, Faroese annar, Icelandic annar, Jamtish æðnen, ænnen, Norwegian Bokmål annen, Norwegian Nynorsk annan, Swedish annan), Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌸𐌰𐍂 (anþar, “other”), Old Prussian anters, antars (“other, second”), Lithuanian antroks (“other”, pronoun), Latvian otrs, otrais (“second”), Macedonian втор (vtor, “second”), Albanian ndërroj (“to change, switch, alternate”), Sanskrit अन्तर (ántara, “different”). French autre, Spanish otro, Portuguese outro, etc., all from Latin alter, are false cognates. A true cognate would be Latin anterior.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ohter,otehr,otherr,othher,othre,otther,toher
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for other
Misspelling Variants of "other"
Frequency rank: #73 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter O in our English index: