ottawa
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "ottawa", 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 "ottawa" 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 "ottawa" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Ottawa is aEnglishname. It means: A city in Ontario, Canada; the capital city of Canada. Pronounced /ˈɒtəwə/. It ranks #7,371 in English word frequency. Often confused with Ozawa.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /ˈɒtəwə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,371 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Ottawa is 6 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɒtəwə/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,371 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for Ottawa, with forms such as "otatwa", "otawa", and "ottaaw". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "Ozawa", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ojibwe odaawaa/ᐅᑡᐙ (“an Ottawa; a trader”), from Proto-Algonquian *atawewa (“to trade”). 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 Ottawa, spelled O-T-T-A-W-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A city in Ontario, Canada; the capital city of Canada.
- 2The federal government of Canada.
- 3A river flowing southeast between Ontario and Quebec, Canada into the St. Lawrence River.
- 4A number of places in the United States:
- 5A number of places in the United States:
- 6A number of places in the United States:
- 7A number of places in the United States:
- 8A number of places in the United States:
- 9A number of places in the United States:
- 10A number of places in the United States:
- 11A village and former commune of Ivory Coast.
- 12A suburb of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
- 13An Algonquian people closely related to the Ojibwe.
- 14The Ottawa language (may be considered a dialect of Ojibwe).
Etymology
From Ojibwe odaawaa/ᐅᑡᐙ (“an Ottawa; a trader”), from Proto-Algonquian *atawewa (“to trade”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: otatwa,otawa,ottaaw,ottawwa,ottwaa,totawa
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Ottawa
Misspelling Variants of "Ottawa"
Frequency rank: #7,371 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter O in our English index: