paddock
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "paddock", 7-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 "paddock" 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 "paddock" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
paddock is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals. Pronounced /ˈpædək/. Often confused with padlock.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | paddock |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpædək/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #25,161 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for paddock is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpædək/. Corpus data places it at rank #25,161 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 6 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 paddock, with forms such as "apddock", "paddcok", and "paddocck". 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, "padlock", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is almost certainly a variant of dialectal British parrock (“enclosure; park; croft, small field, paddock”), from Middle English parrok, parrock (“enclosed pasture, paddock; coop; feeding stall; cabin, hut”) [and other forms], from Old English pear… 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 paddock, spelled P-A-D-D-O-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals.
- 2An enclosure next to a racecourse where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.
- 3An area at a racing circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.
- 4A field on which a game is played; a playing field.
- 5A field of grassland of any size, either enclosed by fences or delimited by geographical boundaries, especially a large area for keeping cattle or sheep.
- 6A place in a superficial deposit where ore or washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) is excavated; also, a place for storing ore, washdirt, etc.
Etymology
The noun is almost certainly a variant of dialectal British parrock (“enclosure; park; croft, small field, paddock”), from Middle English parrok, parrock (“enclosed pasture, paddock; coop; feeding stall; cabin, hut”) [and other forms], from Old English pearroc, pearruc (“fence used to enclose a space; area enclosed by such a fence, enclosure”), from Proto-West Germanic *parruk (“enclosure; pen for animals”), from Proto-Germanic *parrukaz (“fence; enclosure”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *barō (“bar, beam; barrier”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“to pierce; to strike”). Equivalent to park + -ock. Doublet of park. The verb is derived from the noun. Cognates * Danish park (“pond”) * Dutch perk (“flowerbed; garden; pen”) * German Pferch (“sheepfold, sheep-pen”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apddock,paddcok,paddocck,paddockk,paddokc,padock,padodck,pdadock,ppaddock
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for paddock
Misspelling Variants of "paddock"
Frequency rank: #25,161 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: