oxygen
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "oxygen", 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 "oxygen" 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 "oxygen" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
oxygen is aEnglishnoun. It means: The chemical element (symbol O) with an atomic number of 8 and relative atomic mass of 15.9994. It is a colorless and odorless gas. Sometimes called elemental oxygen to distinguish it from molecula... Pronounced /ˈɒksɪd͡ʒən/. It ranks #4,695 in English word frequency. Often confused with oxen and Origen.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | oxygen |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɒksɪd͡ʒən/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #4,695 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for oxygen is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɒksɪd͡ʒən/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,695 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for oxygen, with forms such as "oxgyen", "oxxygen", and "oxyegn". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "oxen", "Origen", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ-der.? Ancient Greek ὀξύς (oxús) Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁os Proto-Hellenic *génos Ancient Greek γένος (génos) French oxygènebor. English oxygen Borrowed from Fren… 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 oxygen, spelled O-X-Y-G-E-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The chemical element (symbol O) with an atomic number of 8 and relative atomic mass of 15.9994. It is a colorless and odorless gas. Sometimes called elemental oxygen to distinguish it from molecular oxygen.
- 2Molecular oxygen (O₂), a colorless, odorless gas at room temperature.
- 3A mixture of oxygen and other gases, administered to a patient to help them breathe.
- 4An atom of this element.
- 5A condition or environment in which something can thrive.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ-der.? Ancient Greek ὀξύς (oxús) Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁os Proto-Hellenic *génos Ancient Greek γένος (génos) French oxygènebor. English oxygen Borrowed from French oxygène (originally in the form principe oxygène, a variant of principe oxigine ‘acidifying principle’, suggested by Lavoisier), from Ancient Greek ὀξύς (oxús, “sharp”) + γένος (génos, “birth”), referring to oxygen's supposed role in the formation of acids. By surface analysis, oxy- + -gen.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: oxgyen,oxxygen,oxyegn,oxygenn,oxyggen,oxygne,oxyygen,oyxgen,xoygen
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for oxygen
Misspelling Variants of "oxygen"
Frequency rank: #4,695 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter O in our English index: